Early church history
Spiritual death refers to a state of separation from God, characterized by sin and a lack of spiritual vitality. Death can be understood as “the fellowship of the soul in a state of sin with the body,” while life is the “separation from sin”
1. This concept encompasses several key aspects:
1. Spiritual murder occurs when someone causes another to fall into infidelity or sin, subjecting their soul to spiritual death. Jesus emphasized the severity of this, stating it would be better for such a person to be drowned with a millstone around their neck
2.
2. The soul is not inherently immortal, but can choose not to die. If it fails to know the truth, it dies and dissolves with the body. However, if it acquires knowledge of God, it does not truly die
3.
3. Fundamentally, the soul is darkness with no light of its own. It naturally inclines towards matter and death when left alone. However, when united with the Divine Spirit, it can rise above its limitations
3.
4. Faith and salvation are not automatic or permanent. They must be preserved, as grace can forsake those who abandon the Lord’s discipline. Historical examples like Solomon and Saul demonstrate how individuals can lose grace when they stray from God’s ways
4.
5. The apostle Paul articulated this concept powerfully, explaining that when people were servants of sin, they were free from righteousness. The end of such a path is death. But by becoming servants of God, they can bear fruit leading to holiness and eternal life
1.
Ultimately, God desires that sinners repent and return to life
4, offering a path of redemption from spiritual death.
1
Clement of Alexandria,
“The Stromata, or Miscellanies,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885),
2:411.
2
Philip Schaff,
The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes: The Greek and Latin Creeds, with Translations (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890),
536.
3
John Mee Fuller and G. T. Stokes,
“Tatianus (1),” in A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines, ed. William Smith and Henry Wace (London: John Murray, 1877–1887),
4:787.
4
David W. Bercot, ed.,
“Salvation,” in A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998),
588.
Epistle XX
And therefore I ask that you will grant my desire, and that you will grieve with me at the (spiritual) death of my sister, who in this time of devastation has fallen from Christ; for she has sacrificed and provoked our Lord, as seems manifest to us. And for her deeds I in this day of paschal rejoicing,3 weeping day and night, have spent the days…
Ante-Nicene Fathers 5: Fathers of the Third Century: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Novatian, Appendix, Cyp., Ep. (ANF) 20, p 298
The recondite pattern of concepts that is set out in the text is still grounded in the fact that the church has learnt to encounter God liturgically in one way rather than another, and its ‘damnatory’ clause is a way of saying that the absence of this practice and the experience that accompanies it is spiritual death. We may dislike the absolutism of this; but it is more than an idolatry of formulae.
Rowan Williams, “Introduction: On Studying the Early Church,” in T&T Clark Handbook of the Early Church (ed. Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, John Anthony McGuckin, and Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski; T&T Clark Handbooks; London; New York; Oxford; New Delhi; Sydney: T&T Clark, 2022), 11.
