Episode 130: Interview with Dr. Benjamin Wheaton

Dr. Benjamin Wheaton comes on the podcast to explore his thesis in Suffering Not Power: Atonement in the Middle Ages (Lexham Press). Although many have thought since Gustav Aulen that a kind of Christus Victor was the predominate view, Wheaton explains why we should nuance that view and see other ways of viewing the atonement in Dante, and several other early preachers and commentators.

Timestamps:

2:13- Three Major Figures

8:25- Penal Substitution

10:06- Heimo’s Contribution

16:25- Baptism and Atonement

20:13- Medieval Thought

23:36- John Haas and the Reformers

Charles Kim 0:00

Hello and welcome to the history of Christian theology. My name is Chad Kim with me this week will be Dr. Benjamin Wheaton. Dr. Wheaton, his new book suffering not power atonement in the Middle Ages, was recently released with lexham. University Press. Dr. Wheaton was kind enough to talk with us about his thesis in this book, which seeks to explore how the atonement was understood in medieval writings, and why we often get this wrong. So basically, Dr. Wheaton goes through the Christus Victor kind of myth that was put forward by Gustavo Eln. And seeks to show that actually something closer to substitutionary atonement was understood long before the reframe the Reformers kind of came up with this view. So we talked with him a little bit about that, what that means, and just really appreciated getting to talk with him a little bit about this. If you'd heard my previous intros, you might know that we're releasing these a little bit out of order. We had some corrupted audio in the conversation with Tom and Trevor. So I'm working on recovering that. But I thought I'd go ahead and release this episode. So that we could have something out this week. But we will fix the audio in the conversation with Tom and Trevor and get that one back in line. So thank you all for your patience. Thank you also to grant Bell chamber, who's doing great work in Oxford, and also still helping me edit and get this podcast out. So with no further ado, here's my conversation with Dr. Wheaton, if you enjoy this conversation, please follow up with us on Facebook, on Twitter, or on our web page, a history of Christian theology.com. Thanks, and we'll see you again next week. If I remember correctly, we had we were we kind of did some prolegomena talking a little bit about the background of sort of penal substitutionary, atonement, some of these things, but we were just starting to get into the the figures that you consider in the book. And so do you like do you want to just start, I guess by chronological order, it would have been says Arrius Dante and then high Mo, maybe. But the book No,

Benjamin Wheaton 2:13

sorry, yes, hi mo than Dante. But the book doesn't do that. So if you can go either in chronological order, or we can go in the order the book treat you treats the directionality. There's a rationale to that.

Charles Kim 2:24

Yeah, well, we'll go along with the book then. So who are those that you are considering as we think about this,

Benjamin Wheaton 2:30

right, so I wanted to have three figures from the end of the Middle Ages, the beginning of the Middle Ages, and the middle of the Middle Ages, or this what I consider to be the middle of the Middle Ages, not everyone does. So the first person I want to choose was the end me someone who is closest to the Reformation. But still, for the most, I guess, you could say developed for want of a better term, in that you had the greatest sort of sort of the mature consideration of the middle of medieval Western theology. And for that, I chose Dante on the Gary, the great Italian poet, who, of course, wrote famous, most famous for his works, the Divine Comedy, but also wrote a plethora of other works, which are very much worth considering. And, of course, he was very popular in his own day as well. So it's worth not just for he is useful, not just for saying what he thought, but for what people around him thought of what he thought. So he was also a sort of thoroughly mainstream figure. So Dante again, wrote no 13th, beginning of 14th century and Florence and Verona and Ravenna. And those areas, and we're very well educated in the thomist traditions, but also just the full panoply of medieval theology, Medieval Latin theology, I should say. And he was very a major sort of player in Italian politics of the period. And so I felt it's such a huge, again, a nice mainstream person who generally speaking is not studied for his take on the atonement. But his take on the Atonement is, in fact, quite unique. And it's worth paying a fair amount of attention to I'm rereading him years ago when I started him and undergrad and, and saying to myself, wait a second. This, this is sounds almost exactly like people substitution, what's going on here? That's that's what the was one of the ways in which things started to percolate for me. Yeah, that's Dante the first and latest figure. Then I went skip back about 800 years or so, to the beginning of the Middle Ages. And about guess early five hundreds, first few decades of the sixth century, with a series of oral and serious of oral was not a poet, like Dante, but he was a A very sort of influential Bishop, Gallo Roman Bishop of the of late antiquity and the early and just after Roman power retreated from Gaul, so he served first under the Visigothic kings, and then under the Ostrogoths and then eventually into the Franks. So, he is a very useful figure for looking at sort of, again at the center of the politics and society of southern France at this point in time. And he was already and also a representative of two major streams in in Gaul at the time, which was the aesthetic and asked extreme led by represented by people such as John Kassian. And the monastery of the Eldoret. And so he was spent some time in lira before moving to ARL. So very keen on asceticism and monasticism and also somebody who was very, very Augustinian and came under the influence of an African theologian by the name of Juliana Marius, and became one of the staunch supporters of Augustine's doctrines of grace in the early sixth century. But addition to this, he was a major ecclesiastical reformer. He was insistent one of his main things, was insisting that the common people should be allowed as much access to the faith into the scriptures as possible. So he reformed preaching, he wrote many, many sermons, he has a huge corpus of sermons that were incredibly influential throughout the Middle Ages. And anyway, so the fathers were transmitted to the Middle Ages, and after primarily, not primarily, but in a large part through sermons, and who sort of digested their teaching and made put it into understandable form both for whether physical audiences or lay audiences and Xirius was a major figure in doing this. And he, so one of his sermons is on the atonement, why Christ had to die, and why you couldn't just rescue us through power. And in that he expresses the opinion that Christ's death on the cross is because the devil sort of was voiced by his own petard, the thing and that he performs the very sacrifice that was necessary for the forgiveness of sin for men's forgiveness before God. So he lost his own power. So here we have a kind of a, of a Christmas victory view, but a Christmas victory view which is dependent upon which is still theocentric dependent upon Christ's sacrifice. So that's just one sermon. But there's a couple others I have his contemporaries I look at and he is he adapted to anonymous sermons written earlier for this and how he adapts them is very interesting. He in fact does so in a way that sort of corrects their non Augustinian false and very sort of focuses on the thing so especially with regard to the to the devil's rights, he's very keen on ensuring that the devil is not actually have rights over us, but that rather He is our federal criminal. And that if God can forgive us just without anything that he that he asked for, give the devil to.

Charles Kim 8:25

And I well, I you know, I when I was reading through it, you know, the quote from Cesaro is is pretty good. I think it's on 1/16. Christ the Lord without any guilt without any blame underwent a penal sentence. The Innocent Man is crucified without sin. And then this the point that you are making, the devil is made guilty by the death of an innocent man, the devil is made guilty by bringing the cross upon a righteous man who owed nothing, the death of Christ benefited man, what Adam owed to God, Christ paid by undergoing death, having been made without any doubt, a sacrifice for the Son of Man and their race. Just as Paul blesseth Paul taught, Christ loved us and handed himself over for us an offering and sacrificial victim of God, in a pleasing aroma is pretty good summary of of kind of where, you know, I guess as aureus is on on this score.

Benjamin Wheaton 9:18

Yeah, so suddenly, we're going through that was really into those areas for my dissertation for part of my dissertation work and just seeing the sermon and going well, that's a that's a pretty good, you know, explanation of what's going on here. So, then, after serious, by the way, if anyone's interested, I look at serious more my forthcoming book and brill, specifically, his involvement in the Council of orange, of whom he was the instigator. But the next person the last person I look at, so the first is Dante look at him with you know, Anselmi and satisfaction, second series of aural typical patristic Christus Victor. And then lastly, I look at the person who I think really sort of encapsulates what I think the core of the Atonement was for the medieval Christian. And that was sacrifice which is with Heimo of ox air. High Mo, is one of the least known, but most important of the medieval of medieval biblical exegesis. So I'm all about Sarah lived in the ninth century, from about so 810 820 to about 870 or so. And he was a monk from probably from a very young age. And was became one of the main teachers in the abbey of Sandra men in the city of Eau Claire, which is a very important Abbey under the patronage of the direct patronage of the Carolingian kings. And, of course, one of the major aspects, the major aspects of the Carolingian sort of intellectual reforms, started by Charlemagne, but carried on by his sons and affected by that, and successors was that was biblical exegesis. We talked about preserving the classics, which they did to an extent, but the main effort was very much on biblical exegesis. And so Heimo maxair, had these has the second largest output of commentaries of any of the Carolingians largest is for abandons Maurice, but he wasn't nearly as but his works weren't nearly as popular as those the finals Heimo about their commentaries, we have more manuscripts surviving of his commentaries than of any other almost any other author. And his commentaries were also adapted. So they became a major foundation of the Greek glossa ordinaria, which is the major later medieval commentary on the Bible. And his sermons, which were also sort of accompany his, the commentaries, again, were adapted and used and just flowed everywhere. They're so ubiquitous, it's I think it's part of the reason they sort of flown under the radar. Is that so what's interesting, too, is that forces areas, I mean, enough is there for Heimo. What we can see in his in the surviving works is actually, we get sort of an in depth glimpse of what a classroom in the curtain of Carolingian monastery was like, these are all his lecture notes combined, sort of his considered lecture notes with the additions of the primary texts they were using. And so actually, we have one of his students actually recorded has a list of his sort of original lecture stuff. And then we have the primary text, which he was using, and then Kaimal, sort of combined them in his commentaries, and adapts them in that way. So it's a pity we don't, one of the great projects of scholarship that needs to happen in the next couple of decades, is a good critical edition of Heimo vaccinators commentary on the on the pole line letters, because if we could do that with a huge task, because there's hundreds and hundreds of manuscripts, and they're all so different, I mean, it's just, it creates a crazy morass. But it's interesting is that we could actually get a really clear glimpse, I think of what exactly what's going on in a Carolingian classroom, by one of its best and greatest teachers, of biblical exegesis. So Heimo was big and very influential. And his most popular work was the commentary on the letters of Paul. And, of course, the roots of Google, of course, Hebrews was included in that corpus in this period. And so I decided to take a look at his commentary on Romans. And his comments, especially his commentary on Hebrews. Because one of the things do interesting is look at for the for what medieval Christians thought of the Atonement was, what was how they interpreted Hebrews, and parts of Romans. That's where we get our doctrine of the Atonement from and we see to a significant degree, so why don't we figure out what they thought. So I looked at his so then, so again, so I looked at these commentaries and did some sort of exegesis of the exegesis, figuring out what he thought and what he thought was it was a sacrifice by God to God, a propitiation and expiation, there's some details of how, how they both work.

Charles Kim 14:27

Yeah. Yeah, well, and then that's, that's pretty, you know, pretty fascinating. I was trying to think if I was trying to find a quote, that I have anything that I can rely on from from him, there's, there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on there. But yeah, well, and so do we have I mean, so to some extent, like I, you know, I think when I think sort of more theologically, about these questions, you know, like one of the great critiques from TF Torrance was that the Latin doctrine was overly emphasis, like overly emphasized these sort of forensic accounts. And so like, you know, is that the only way that medieval Christians thought about the Atonement is in these kind of penal ways? Or, you know, like, I mean, I know there's been some work that shows that Thomas was interested in sort of deification and other kinds of other ways of explaining, you know, what it means for Christians to be united the gods. So were like, you know, to some extent, we could say like, yeah, they, you know, they understood that that sacrifice is a way that the word of Christ is talked about in Romans and Hebrews, but that doesn't mean that that's the only way that one could talk about such things. Do you have any thoughts to, you know, like, Is this is this a very, like, specific pitch picture of interpretation of one kind of text? Or is this like the the overarching view, in a sense is TF Torrance, right. This is just how Latins thought.

Benjamin Wheaton 16:01

I'm not sure I'm gonna venture an opinion on that subject. On the whole. I was very specific, I think that I'm gonna say is, I think that we're faithful readers of Scripture. And therefore what they thought, and what they'll talk about would be governed by what they read. I think so. Sacrifice isn't necessarily all forensic, either is very much sort of our our body, our sinful nature of being cleansed, and then are being baptized with him. A big aspect, of course, was baptism, as you know, they placed a much greater emphasis upon the act of baptism than we do. So one thing of homos emphases is in Romans, for example, is that faith is necessary. But it requires baptism. Unless, of course, you are murdered, and then your womb, blood will provide the baptismal waters. And that's, of course, that's Augustine. That's Augustine. So you know, baptismal regeneration. Of course, he also that doesn't, doesn't work unless you have faith. So if you don't goes both ways, that's great. So and so that sense were baptized, and therefore we're united with Christ, and therefore our human nature is cleansed. So part of the sacrifice of expiation is that it cleanses the human nature, all human nature's that are united to Christ, which is, you know, I mean, imputation of righteousness in itself is the Protestant, I guess, version of this. But of course, Augustine held to this position as well. So, in that sense, being united with Him, we are cleansed from sin, because his because of his sacrifice.

Charles Kim 17:41

Yeah, that's really helpful. I like that idea. Right about you know, because I do think when we tend to, you know, talk about the imputation of righteousness, the sort of, you know, Lutheran categories and understandings that we, you know, it could be sort of, if you want to, say, overly spiritualized, and we forget that there is a very, there's a very, you know, bodily, physical nature to this, right, where, to some extent, like what we need from Christ isn't just that God would, in sort of the Lutheran way, look at us differently. But But we actually our bodies need to be transformed from something that is, you know, as Paul would say, is corrupt to be brought into in corruption. And so so that's, I think that's kind of helpful, you know, maybe in that respect, one way that we could look at someone like, Hi Mo, or some of these other characters and see the ways in which they actually did you know, they, they weren't overly concerned with just the legality question, but it's a bit it is very much a bodily and physical question.

Benjamin Wheaton 18:44

Yeah. Yeah, especially in that well, of course, are these were high Moses areas are both deeply affected by the aesthetic, monastic tradition, which placed a great emphasis upon the necessity of discipline, the body and the flesh and its desires. Now, obviously, they're both Augustinian monastics which meant that they didn't, that they thought it wasn't ever possible in the present life to do so completely. And that, you know, not everyone could do it, and that it's perfectly possible not to be a monkey to be a good Christian as well. Still, the fact that they weren't influenced by this and pretty clear they were and that they viewed it as a good thing to do. I think when the necessity of regular regular ticking of the Eucharist and so on and so forth. So yeah, this is all bound up with the late antique and sacramental. As of now, there was a big debate and Carolingian period about the nature of the sacraments, of course, but Lord's Supper, but I'm not sure exactly where Hindman stands on that. I could find out I guess, because I'm actually reading a chant doing a translation for brepols Love. Hi, most commentary on Romans At the moment, it's very long. So I'd been working on it for a while. But But yeah, so it's a. But yeah, there's lots of stuff. There's lots of questions, lots of theological questions we have what did the medieval people think? What did the only thing in this period can be answered? By looking at the sort of things that have been overlooked until now?

Charles Kim 20:25

Yeah. Well, and I guess the the one other sort of reception question is, to some extent, you know, it's like I was actually looking at, for different projects that I'm doing the Jesus Prayer. So Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God have mercy upon me, a sinner. It's called the sort of the center, like the more they call it the soul of Orthodoxy, or something like this. But it turns out that it's also prayed in a lot of pilgrimage accounts. And it's included in the the Jacob div Roghan, A's golden legend, it seems to be much more popularly known than any one sort of comments on or recognizes in, in the Latin. And actually, the earliest full form that we have is in Latin before Greek, even though it's considered this Greek prayer. But you know what, I guess so the question that I'm trying to lead to is, why is it that we forget so quickly, people like Heimo, or people, you know, other sorts of things, that, that during the period were so seems so important, maybe to more average Christians? I'm not sure. But, but you know, nowadays, we only think, you know, we might know Dante's Inferno, we might know the name Thomas Aquinas, but the rest of it seems to, you know, the other two characters who are so influential have been lost. What what do you know, any, any thoughts on why we don't pay more attention to these people?

Benjamin Wheaton 21:46

I would say, twas ever thus. And that we always there's certain that well, that's the question of reception history, isn't it? Why do certain people can popular in certain areas, and certain people fall out of popularity, so Aquinas was, of course, a genius, and therefore you can his works will survive. Same thing with, you know, Plato, his work survived, because he was a genius, whereas other philosophers whose works we don't have, we're not, or another point of view, much of the classics, we think of the classical canon is a creation, because that it is the Canon it is because those are the texts which were part of the canon of late antique of the schools and later Roman Empire. And their peculiar tastes, are what govern what we have. So it's a certain extent, I would say it's an accident of history, sometimes. Other times, it's for other types of courses. Also, deliberate selection, again, Aquinas is very influential, and therefore still read. Anselm is sort of central because he was central to certain other people, too many people in central to the understanding of the, of the church as a whole, in the later Middle Ages. I would say, though, that actually the commentaries of Heimo vaxcel, were very popular with the followers of John hus. Oh, interesting. They were also well copied by the enemies of the followers of John has so sort of to choose by both sides, which is an interesting, and that hasn't been studied, actually, on there's been no in depth study of that interest of that phenomenon. But it's, it's been noted that the good manuscripts there lots of check manuscripts that are and bohemian manuscripts that are final dating from this era written in collections of both sides on that particular controversy.

Charles Kim 23:36

Interesting. So for listeners who may not know we, you know, at the podcasts, we started trying to go through like the history of Christian theology, as it's called, we only ever got up to the fourth century. So we have not talked a whole lot about John Haas and the Reformation. So sort of, you know, could you give a little background why this is so important for more Protestant, reformed thinkers, Haas, and maybe the question of Heimo.

Benjamin Wheaton 23:58

Well, Haas is usually considered to be a proto reformer, if you want to use that term. And sort of his ideas were frequently foreshadowings of what were the concerns that would eventually you're up to full force and the Reformation. And so his father has to especially and when their mission came around, as followers identified themselves with the information as well, same thing with the other, I think, factions which emerged before too. So sort of a both ways, identification. So, of course, eventually, house was burned was famously burned at the stake for heresy. And his followers can persist it thereafter. And were thorns in the side of the emperors and the local rulers for many, many decades thereafter. And so just that this is what major does pre reformation dispute. And the fact that high most commentaries are so important, is an interesting facet.

Charles Kim 25:00

Yeah, sort of maybe gave some sort of a fuel to the fire. For thinkers like us. Yeah. It just reminds me that, like, you know, we're talking about ninth and 10th century and the reception of Augustine, there's always you know, origina is receives Augustine and tries to use elements of Agustin and his theology and, you know, their their disputes over, you know, who receives the Gustin correctly, kind of all the way up through and it sounds like there's something similar with Heimo. I had no idea that he was so disputed as well.

Benjamin Wheaton 25:34

Well, he was used by both sides. Yeah, that way. Now, are you gonna is an interesting figure too, of course. But he, he got he was gotten into some trouble for some of his views, of course. Because, but actually, I actually, as a side note, I think, actually, that the whole Carolingian controversy of aggressive Free Will there's a lot more to it, than people think. But that's best for another day.

Charles Kim 26:05

Well, I so yeah, I mean, I think we're running up on an hour of time that we spent together. So Dr. Wheaton, I really do appreciate you coming on the show. I and, you know, it's I think, hopefully, at least in my mind, this has been a very helpful conversation, just to remind myself and other listeners, how complex the what we call the medieval period, or the Middle Ages, you know, how complex it really is, and the sort of the different trajectories and questions that are raised. But but also, to some extent, you know, this is like, this is the fun of history is looking for, for some threads. So we've seen, you know, we've sort of seen controversies, we've seen disputes, but But what your book makes clear, is that there has always been a kind of God at the center of the Atonement, right. And so, you know, where Gustavo Len may have over emphasized the role of the devil, what your work, John Riviere and, and, and the look at these figures shows is that actually, there's more of a thread, then than people may realize? So I'll let you have the final word. Do you care to comment on, on on what you know, how to handle that tension of the disputes, but then maybe one more to unify? There's some more Unifying Threads.

Benjamin Wheaton 27:29

Yeah, just that they were readers of the scriptures. And that all of us always, like we do, they consider the Scriptures, the final authority on the matter. And so ultimately, it's about exegesis and understanding with the age of the Spirit, what the Scriptures teach on the atonement. And everything scriptures say is true, and therefore ought to be thing. And so how they read the scriptures, is of relevance to us because as faithful readers, they have much to give to them as we do them. I'm going to finish actually with a quote that I put at the end of March of chapter five, which is from an anonymous sermon for the end of the fifth century, which I think neatly. And this sort of vary from a popular sermon on the Apostles Creed, which says, for the righteous man was condemned in place of the unrighteous man, and the penalty that was owed by sinners, he himself received without sin, so that he might both take away the penalty and destroy the sins of those in whose place he was punished, which is not exactly penal substitution, but it's a good encapsulation of what propitiation and expiation does. So sacrifice is the center, I suggest of the medieval atonement. And if you see that as the as the dominant thread, because that after all, I think is what the Atonement is in the scriptures. So

Charles Kim 28:56

Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Wheaton, it's been a pleasure to have you on the history of Christian theology.

Benjamin Wheaton 29:00

It's a pleasure to be on here. Thank you very much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai