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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Polyphonic Theology of the Church Fathers

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Prof. Dr. Dres. H. c. Christoph Marschies (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany) in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Michael Welker (Heidelberg University, Germany) initiated an international project to which about 25 international scholars of high profile were invited to participate. The purpose of the project is to gain a new and nuanced perspective on the theology of 19 church fathers: Justin the Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Eusebius, Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Theodoret of Cyrus, Boethius, Isidore, Maximus the Confessor and John Damascene. Research on these theologians has often been centred on their individual theologies, on person-to-person relations and on group relations. Duals have predominantly been used to explain their profiles (biblical versus philosophical, individual versus ecclesial traditions etc.). The endeavour of the project was to move beyond such perspectives in order to explore the structured plurality which provides the works of the Church Fathers with a canonical texture comparable to the biblical canon which combines coherence and complexity and offers a polyphony of perspectives of great and nuanced orienting powers. The presenters tied to identify not only the uniqueness of an individual father among the other fathers, but significant communalities and differences to some of the other Church Fathers with respect to the concentration on theological topics and forms of thought and methodology. A central question which guided the research and discourse of this project relate to the authorization of theological thoughts and statements. Which strategies to achieve such authorization are necessary and which persons play a central part, both explicitly and in later ways? In order to pursue this line of research the scholars involved in the project were invited to look for direct references by other Church Fathers to the individual thinker or, if possible, to his references to other Church Fathers and their work. It was planned to move beyond the evaluation of self-descriptions and to look for thematic concentrations and specific methodological operations which characterize individual