The Early Church Fathers and Inerrancy

This is post 2 in a series on biblical inerrancy.

In the conversations of biblical inerrancy, authority, and interpretation, one of the most common arguments I read is that a particular interpretation of Scripture is correct because “the early church fathers believed it.” So, I’ve embarked on a quest to understand some of the early church fathers and their (shockingly diverse) interpretations of Scripture, including their view on inerrancy. You can do a quick Google and find several articles claiming to use these people’s words to support “inerrancy”, but I’ve done my best to understand each father’s opinions in the greater context of their work, rather than cherry-picking quotes to support a presupposed narrative. My results are below.

My personal conclusion is that the early church fathers did not see the Bible as a “history textbook”, a view I call literalistic inerrancy. Most would call the Bible “inspired” or somehow originating from God/the Holy Spirit, but for most, that’s as far as it goes. Only Augustine (and John Chrysostom, at times) had a particularly literalistic interpretation of Scripture and its inerrancy in a similar way to modern American Evangelicals; but even Augustine recognized the difficulty (and occasional impossibility) of interpreting the entire Bible literalistically.

I’m not the first to have this opinion (see 1, 2), and I’m in disagreement with some evangelicals. Take, for instance, Alisa Childers, who writes:

One thing I regularly encounter on social media is the idea that the early Church Fathers didn’t see the Bible as inerrant, authoritative, and inspired by God—that somehow these concepts are modern inventions of the evangelical world. As an avid reader of the Fathers, I find this notion perplexing.

— Alisa Childers, Did Early Christians Believe the Bible was Inspired, Inerrant, and Authoritative?

See how inerrant is carelessly lumped in with authoritative and inspired, as if one assumes the other? The early church fathers didn’t express this word inerrant, and in my opinion, it would be presenting a revisionist history to suggest that most or all early Church Fathers saw the Bible this way. I tend to agree with this comment from Daniel Hawkins:

So in some ways, while a belief in the inspiration of scripture is indeed not something new, the way it is often portrayed by evangelicals is. Inspiration is often viewed as the sole reason the documents we have in the canon are seen as authoritative, when in reality the formation of the canon was a much more dynamic process that involved a writing’s apostolic origins, orthodoxy, antiquity, and widespread use. Scripture’s authority does not merely rest on its inspiration, but also on the canonization process that recognized the importance of certain documents to the universal church.

I can wholeheartedly agree with your final statement regarding the Fathers’ deep love and admiration for Scripture. However, they did not have so narrow a view of inspiration as many modern evangelicals seem to have.

— Daniel Hawkins

Below, you can find an explanation for the table above. I’ve also included some random, interesting bits of information about some fathers. It should also be noted that this is by no means an exhaustive list of the authoritative church fathers and their opinions— just eight of the most famous ones.

Clement of Rome

• Lived: ??? - c. 100 AD
• Inerrancy Position: unknown
• Likely either the 2nd or 3rd bishop of Rome (Peter being the 1st)

The only genuine surviving work by Clement of Rome is his first epistle to the Corinthians. He expresses a belief in divine inspiration:

Look carefully into the Scriptures, which are the true utterances of the Holy Spirit. Observe that nothing of an unjust or counterfeit character is written in them.

— Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians Chapter 45

Polycarp of Smyrna

• Lived: c. 69 - c. 155
• Inerrancy Position: unknown
• Teacher of Iranaeus
• Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Jerome all wrote that Polycarp was a disciple of “John” (could be John the apostle or John the baptist).

We only have 1 surviving work of Polycarp: the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians. AFAICT, we know nothing about Polycarp’s interpretations of Scripture.

Irenaeus

• Lived: c. 130 - c. 202
• Inerrancy: divine inspiration
• Student of Polycarp

Irenaeus has a significant surviving work, called Against Heresies. In it, he (importantly) recognizes the authority of only the four Gospels (there were additional Gospels competing for canonicity at the time). He also quotes from 21 of the 27 New Testament books, showing their significance in church canon even in his time.

In regards to inerrancy, we really only have this one bit:

If, however, we cannot discover explanations of all those things in Scripture which are made the subject of investigation, yet let us not on that account seek after any other God besides Him who really exists. For this is the very greatest impiety. We should leave things of that nature to God who created us, being most properly assured that the Scriptures are indeed perfect, since they were spoken by the Word of God and His Spirit; but we, inasmuch as we are inferior to, and later in existence than, the Word of God and His Spirit, are on that very account destitute of the knowledge of His mysteries.

— Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.27.2

Using this passage, modern scholars like Norman Geisler and Alisa Childers have commonly associated Irenaeus with literalistic inerrancy. In a post, Geisler argues that because Irenaeus calls the Scriptures “divine” and “the Scripture of truth” and “given to us by God” must mean that he saw them as inerrant, because “God cannot err” (Geisler’s words).

In my opinion, we should be more careful assigning a position like Geisler’s (traditional, literalistic inerrancy) to Irenaeus. At best, Against Heresies simply advances a view of divine inspiration. While it’s true Irenaeus calls the Scriptures “perfect”, it doesn’t mean “inerrant”.

The term ‘perfect’ used in Against Heresies doesn’t mean “without error” in Latin. This term in Latin is ‘perfectae’, which conveys completion, wholeness, or it implies a state of sufficiency, but a state of completion and sufficiency doesn’t imply infallibility in the slightest.

— George Garcia, Modern Inerrancy ≠ Patristic Inerrancy

Clement of Alexandria

• Lived: c. 150 - 215 AD
• Inerrancy Position: unknown
• Teacher of Origen

Clement of Alexandria believed the Scriptures were inspired:

For those are slothful who, having it in their power to provide themselves with proper proofs for the divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, select only what contributes to their own pleasures. And those have a craving for glory who voluntarily evade, by arguments of a diverse sort, the things delivered by the blessed apostles and teachers, which are wedded to inspired words;

— Clement of Alexandra, The Stromata 7.16

He also frequently took an allegorical approach to Scripture.

It were tedious to go over all the Prophets and the Law, specifying what is spoken in enigmas…

— Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 5.6

It’s unclear how Clement interpreted Genesis. Some argue Clement’s description of creation being “indefinite and dateless” insinuates an allegorical reading of Genesis, but others disagree.

That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: “This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.” Genesis 2:4 For the expression “when they were created” intimates an indefinite and dateless production.

— Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 6.16

Universalism

Interestingly, Clement of Alexandria could be called a Christian Universalist, because he believed all people are saved:

He, indeed, saves all; but some [He saves], converting them by punishments; others, however, who follow voluntarily [He saves] with dignity of honour; so “that every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth;” Philippians 2:10 that is, angels, men, and souls that before His advent have departed from this temporal life.

— Clement of Alexandria, Comments on the First Epistle of John

For either the Lord does not care for all men; and this is the case either because He is unable (which is not to be thought, for it would be a proof of weakness), or because He is unwilling, which is not the attribute of a good being. And He who for our sakes assumed flesh capable of suffering, is far from being luxuriously indolent. Or He does care for all, which is befitting for Him who has become Lord of all. For He is Saviour; not [the Saviour] of some, and of others not.

…

And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed, because of their wishing to know; and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate boon which comes by Him.

— Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 7.2

Origen of Alexandria

• Lived: c. 185 - c. 253 AD
• Inerrancy Position: anti-literalistic
• Student of Clement of Alexandria

Origen is a particularly interesting character in the history of early Christian thought and hermeneutics. Because of his unpopular beliefs, Origen has been frequently criticized throughout the ages— “In 543, Emperor Justinian I condemned him as a heretic and ordered all his writings to be burned.” (Wikipedia). Unfortunately, we don’t have most of his written works today, but we do have some writings by others that discuss his beliefs.

Origen believed that before creation, all souls were created to love God, but most fell away to varying degrees. These souls become demons, humans, and angels. One special soul, which never fell away from God, became Jesus.

Inerrancy

Origen clearly believed in divine inspiration:

“With complete and utter precision the Holy Spirit supplied the very [words of Scripture] through his subordinate authors, so that you might ever bear in mind the weighty circumstances of their writing, according to which the wisdom of God pervades every divinely inspired writing, reaching out to each single letter. Perhaps it was on account of this that the Savior said, ‘Not one iota or even a serif thereof shall be lost from the Law until all is accomplished’”

— Origen, Commentaries on the Psalms, Ps. 1:4

In Origen’s commentary on John, he discusses the difficulty of harmonizing the differences between the Gospels:

There are many other points on which the careful student of the Gospels will find that their narratives do not agree; and these we shall place before the reader, according to our power, as they occur. The student, staggered at the consideration of these things, will either renounce the attempt to find all the Gospels true, and not venturing to conclude that all our information about our Lord is untrustworthy, will choose at random one of them to be his guide; or he will accept the four, and will consider that their truth is not to be sought for in the outward and material letter.

— Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 10.2

He concludes that the Gospel writers did not always attempt to preserve exact history, instead choosing to preserve the “spiritual truth” in the “material falsehood”.

In the case I have supposed where the historians desire to teach us by an image what they have seen in their mind, their meaning would be found, if the four were wise, to exhibit no disagreement; and we must understand that with the four Evangelists it is not otherwise. They made full use for their purpose of things done by Jesus in the exercise of His wonderful and extraordinary power; they use in the same way His sayings, and in some places they tack on to their writing, with language apparently implying things of sense, things made manifest to them in a purely intellectual way. I do not condemn them if they even sometimes dealt freely with things which to the eye of history happened differently, and changed them so as to subserve the mystical aims they had in view; so as to speak of a thing which happened in a certain place, as if it had happened in another, or of what took place at a certain time, as if it had taken place at another time, and to introduce into what was spoken in a certain way some changes of their own. They proposed to speak the truth where it was possible both materially and spiritually, and where this was not possible it was their intention to prefer the spiritual to the material. The spiritual truth was often preserved, as one might say, in the material falsehood.

— Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 10.4

In another clear blow to literalistic inerrancy, Origen posits that it would be “ignorant” to imagine the tree of life as “visible and palpable”, instead opting for a more metaphorical approach:

Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars — the first day even without a sky? And who is found so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if He had been a husbandman, planted trees in paradise, in Eden towards the east, and a tree of life in it, i.e., a visible and palpable tree of wood, so that anyone eating of it with bodily teeth should obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, should come to the knowledge of good and evil? No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it.

…

The same style of Scriptural narrative occurs abundantly in the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have placed Jesus on a lofty mountain, that he might show Him from thence all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. How could it literally come to pass, either that Jesus should be led up by the devil into a high mountain, or that the latter should show him all the kingdoms of the world (as if they were lying beneath his bodily eyes, and adjacent to one mountain), i.e., the king­doms of the Persians, and Scythians, and Indians? Or how could he show in what manner the kings of these kingdoms are glorified by men? And many other instances similar to this will be found in the Gospels by anyone who will read them with attention, and will observe that in those narratives which appear to be literally recorded, there are inserted and interwoven things which cannot be admitted historically, but which may be accepted in a spiritual signification.

Jerome

• Lived: 340s - 420 AD
• Inerrancy Position: divine inspiration

Jerome is most famous for his contribution to the Latin Vulgate, a Bible translation that remains famous and used to this day. Unlike some of his contemporary peers (e.g. Augustine), Jerome used Hebrew source documents when translating the Old Testament, rather than the popular (but newer) Greek Septuagint translation.

Jerome also has a famous quote from his commentary on Isaiah:

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

— Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah, Prologue

Jerome does clearly exhibit support for divine inspiration. In a letter responding to his critics, he says:

I am not, I repeat, so ignorant as to suppose that any of the Lord’s words is either in need of correction or is not divinely inspired; but the Latin manuscripts of the Scriptures are proved to be faulty by the variations which all of them exhibit, and my object has been to restore them to the form of the Greek original, from which my detractors do not deny that they have been translated.

— Jerome, Letter 27: To Marcella

John Chrysostom

• Lived: c. 347 - 407
• Inerrancy Position: traditional inerrantist?

Chrysostom frequently took an allegorical approach to Scripture, such as this example when he understands that Moses did not bring literal honey out of the rock:

…this is that which the prophet intimated, when he said, “He satisfied them with honey out of the rock.” But we do not read in any part of Scripture that Moses brought honey out of the rock, but throughout the history we read of rivers, and waters, and cool streams. What then is it that was meant? For the Scripture by no means speaks falsely. Inas-much, then, as they were thirsty and wearied with drought, and found these streams of water so cooling, in order to show the pleasure of such a draught, he calls the water honey, not as though its nature were changed into honey, but because the condition of the drinkers made these streams sweeter than honey.

— John Chrysostom, Concerning the Statues, Homily 2

At times Chrysostom took an Augustinian approach to inerrancy, using harmonizations and hand-waving away Gospel inconsistencies. But he also recognized the value of having four different Gospels, and even argued that their differences give them support.

“But the contrary,” it may be said, “hath come to pass, for in many places they (the Gospels) are convicted of discordance.” Nay, this very thing is a very great evidence of their truth. For if they had agreed in all things exactly even to time, and place, and to the very words, none of our enemies would have believed but that they had met together, and had written what they wrote by some human compact; because such entire agreement as this cometh not of simplicity. But now even that discordance which seems to exist in little matters delivers them from all suspicion, and speaks clearly in behalf of the character of the writers.

But if there be anything touching times or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said. And these things too, so far as God shall enable us, we will endeavor, as we proceed, to point out; requiring you, together with what we have mentioned, to observe, that in the chief heads, those which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine, nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little.

— John Chrysostom, On Matthew, Homily 1

Writing about this, Glenn Peoples says “this apologetic that Chrysostom is using can only work if there are in fact discrepancies between the Gospel accounts. This fact is presupposed in his argument.”

Further confusing his position on inerrancy, Chrysostom refers to the “unerring truth of Scripture”:

He (Isaiah) desires hence to establish by many proofs the unerring truth of Scripture, and that what Isaiah foretold fell not out otherwise, but as he said.

— John Chrysostom, On John, Homily 68

Chrysostom’s Critique

I found Chrysostom’s critique of his contemporary nominal Christians quite funny: that they don’t know who Amos or Obadiah is, despite knowing a lot about the horses and charioteers that participated in local races.

If you ask them who was Amos or Obadiah, or what is the number of the Prophets or Apostles, they cannot even open their mouth, but for horses and charioteers, they compose excuses more cleverly than sophists or rhetoricians, and after all this, they say, “What is the harm? what is the loss?” This is what I groan for, that ye do not so much as know that the action is a loss, nor have a sense of its evils.

— John Chrysostom, On John, Homily 58

Chrysostom’s critique is still relevant today, but instead of horses and charioteers, it’s football players.

Augustine

• Lived: 354 - 430 AD
• Inerrancy Position: traditional/literalistic

Inerrancy

Augustine expressed a clear agreement with traditional, literalistic inerrancy.

Only to those books which are called canonical have I learned to give honor so that I believe most firmly that no author in these books made any error in writing.

Augustine, Epistles

When he encountered troublesome Scripture, Augustine gave 3 options: an errant manuscript, an errant translator, or an errant interpretation.

And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand.

Augustine, Letter to Jerome

Augustine wrote a whole volume called The Harmony of the Gospels full of, you guessed it, harmonizations between the Gospels. Michael Licona points out that in least one occasion when harmonizing the accounts of Peter thrice denying Jesus, Augustine concedes that it’s impossible to determine the actual words that Jesus said to Peter. But, even then, he goes on to argue that there is no contradiction in this specific story between the Gospels.

But if they seek the actual words that the Lord said to Peter, it is impossible to find them and useless to try, for his meaning, which is what he wanted to make known through saying these words, can be completely understood even through the diverse words of the evangelists. Either Peter, moved at different points in the Lord’s discourse, made his presumptuous statement at three separate times, and three times the Lord predicted his denial, which is more probable, based on our investigation, or else the records of all the evangelists could be reduced to one version with some other narrative order, so that it could be shown that there was one occasion on which Peter made his presumptuous statement and the Lord made his prediction that he would deny him. But in either case no inconsistency among the evangelists can be shown, for there is none.

Augustine, Harmony among the Gospels 3.2.8

Canon

In On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Augustine gives his list of canon books. His criteria for inclusion:

Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the Catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 2.8.12

His canon, which is listed immediately following this criteria in On Christian Doctrine 2.8.12:

• Appears to exclude Lamentations, but this Augustine likely considered Lamentations to be part of Jeremiah, which he does include in his canon
• Accepts 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, the Book of Ecclesiasticus
• Augustine’s NT canon fully matches modern NT canon

In The City of God 18.36, Augustine speaks of the book of Esdras in a way that suggests he believed it to be canonical. For example, he suggests it might be prophetical: “…unless, perhaps, Esdras is to be understood as prophesying of Christ in that passage where…”

However, also in The City of God 18.36, Augustine seems to be unsure whether some books (like Maccabees) are canonical:

and the reckoning of their dates is found, not in the Holy Scriptures which are called canonical, but in others, among which are also the books of the Maccabees. These are held as canonical, not by the Jews, but by the Church, on account of the extreme and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs, who, before Christ had come in the flesh, contended for the law of God even unto death, and endured most grievous and horrible evils.

— Augustine, The City of God 18.36

Septuagint

Augustine believed the Septuagint (a popular Greek translation of the Old Testament in Jesus’s time) was divinely inspired. It’s unclear to me why he believed this.

For the same Spirit who was in the prophets when they spoke these things was also in the seventy men when they translated them, so that assuredly they could also say something else, just as if the prophet himself had said both, because it would be the same Spirit who said both; and could say the same thing differently, so that, although the words were not the same, yet the same meaning should shine forth to those of good understanding; and could omit or add something, so that even by this it might be shown that there was in that work not human bondage, which the translator owed to the words, but rather divine power, which filled and ruled the mind of the translator.

…

If, then, as it behooves us, we behold nothing else in these Scriptures than what the Spirit of God has spoken through men, if anything is in the Hebrew copies and is not in the version of the Seventy, the Spirit of God did not choose to say it through them, but only through the prophets. But whatever is in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew copies, the same Spirit chose rather to say through the latter, thus showing that both were prophets.

— Augustine, The City of God 18.43

Interpretation of Genesis

Augustine is known for his interpretations of Genesis. He wrote an entire work titled Literal Commentary on Genesis. But don’t misunderstand— literal is not literalistic. Augustine saw allegories in his interpretations of the creation story, and saw Genesis 1 as God’s accommodating historical truth into a story:

In Augustine’s view, God creates all things simultaneously, and the 7-day construct in Genesis 1 is an accommodation in which “the Scriptural style comes down to the level of little ones and adjusts itself to their capacity.”

— Gavin Ortlund, Did Augustine Read Genesis 1 Literally?

Ortlund’s post is an excellent overview of Augustine’s views on Genesis, and how they evolved over time. He summarizes Augustine’s view well:

Thus, for Augustine, the term “literal” was concerned with historical referentiality, not with the particular literary genre or style in which that history is recounted. For instance, Augustine did not employ the term “literal” to exclude the possibility of language that is metaphorical, figurative, pictorial, dramatic, stylized, or poetical. This is consistent with how the word “literal” is often used today—for instance, Kevin Vanhoozer describes a good/soft literality, distinct from a hard/bad literality, as an interpretation that is “sensitive to the way language works, and acknowledges intended figures of speech as part and parcel of the literal sense.” Augustine’s literal commentaries display this kind of sensitivity.

— Gavin Ortlund, Did Augustine Read Genesis 1 Literally?

Sources

• newadvent.org is an excellent source for English translations of the early church fathers’ works.
• historicalchristian.faith is another great place to find various English translations of these works. It’s a bit less organized, but an excellent wealth of documents.
• A bit unrelated, but ntcanon.org has a really neat table of 16 early church fathers and their views on the biblical canon (along with justifications).