Gennadius of Constantinople's writing on Hebrews
Source is https://archive.org/details/MN41481ucmf_2
Thank you to Brother Don Nesbitt, the Lord's bloodhound for the alarm about Robert Breaker. His youtube handle is @w46try7/
Hebrews
Hebrews 1:1–2
Hebrews 1:3
Hebrews 5:8
Hebrews 6:1
Hebrews 9:2
Footnotes:
It should be clarified that he believed salvation occurred when a person believed and called.
"But the righteousness which is of faith, he says, speaks on this wise,that is, concerning the righteousness of faith he speaks in this manner: For what follows is also from Moses: Say not in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? or, Who shall descend into the deep? For the word is near you, even in your mouth, and in your heart, which was spoken to the people by Moses, who taught them that without their having contributed anything at all by their own effort, God deemed them worthy to receive the ordinances of the Law, and that they ought not on this account to disbelieve the greatness of the gift, but should rather lay claim all the more to virtue; for Say not in your heart means: it is not possible for you either to think such a thing or to say it, since God has anticipated you with the giving of the Law. "Just as that was spoken to them concerning the giving of the Law back then," he says, "so this applies to us now concerning the grace through Christ; for he himself added that is three times to the sayings of Moses, signifying by this something of this sort: that this is equivalent to it being said to us that we must not doubt either the Savior’s descent from heaven or His ascent again from the dead, but having believed with a whole heart, to confess the grace also with the tongue; for to us who do this, salvation through justification will be attained. For, as is his habit, he distinguished unto righteousness and unto salvation, attributing the former to the faith of the heart, and the latter to the confession of the mouth, each corresponding appropriately to the other." - Gennadius of Constantinople, Romans 10:6-10
"Scripture," he says, "states that those who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But it is not possible for anyone at all to call upon Him without having first believed; and it is again impossible to believe without having first heard what is to be believed; and indeed, it is further impossible to hear without someone preaching; and how, in turn, is it possible to preach without having been sent for this purpose? Therefore, sending must precede preaching, preaching must precede hearing, hearing must precede faith, and faith must precede calling upon [Him]; for the latter cannot come about if the former do not exist. If, then, the matter needed to proceed in this way, in this way it has indeed advanced, and no one can level any reproach at what has been done by God; for having appointed heralds, He sent them out to proclaim the message to all, so that to them applies that word of Scripture: How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" - Gennadius of Constantinople, Romans Romans 10:14–15
There's really only one way to harmonize the idea of salvation occurring by believing and calling, and his further views on baptism, which is that it was about maintaining salvation. That is of course, if you want to do the Heschmeyer method.
"And one of the hallmarks that they're using a bad method is this. If you're reading the church fathers in such a way that either A, they're disagreeing with themselves, or B, they're disagreeing with people they think they're agreeing with, that is a big red flag that you're probably reading them wrong." - Joe Heschmeyer
Why be baptized, if you were already saved when you believed and called? Unless it was a conditional salvation.
This is not even the Tridentine idea that baptism itself is what brings a person into justification.
Gennadius of Constantinople.
Even if he was inconsistent, it still means that he was comfortable pushing past the settled doctrine of baptismal regeneration and saying that salvation was given by believing and calling.
And as he shows influence of universalism, we can infer that his views on salvation were inspired by others.
Gennadius of Constantinople can't even be justified by the idea, that it wasn't a settled doctrine.
All of his contemporaries taught baptismal salvation.
1. Pope Leo I
"Wherefore, as it is quite clear that these two seasons of which we have been speaking are the rightful ones for baptizing the chosen in Church, we admonish you, beloved, not to add other days to this observance. Because, although there are other festivals also to which much reverence is due in God's honour, yet we must rationally guard this principal and greatest sacrament as a deep mystery and not part of the ordinary routine: not, however, prohibiting the licence to succour those who are in danger by administering baptism to them at any time. For while we put off the vows of those who are not pressed by ill health and live in peaceful security to those two closely connected and cognate festivals, we do not at any time refuse this which is the only safeguard of true salvation to any one in peril of death, in the crisis of a siege, in the distress of persecution, in the terror of shipwreck." - Pope Leo I
2. Cyril of Alexandria
"After these things, ye were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and ye made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ. For as our Saviour passed three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so you also in your first ascent out of the water, represented the first day of Christ in the earth, and by your descent, the night; for as he who is in the night, no longer sees, but he who is in the day, remains in the light, so in the descent, as in the night, ye saw nothing, but in ascending again ye were as in the day. And at the self-same moment ye were both dying and being born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother. And what Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, in that case, There is a time to bear and a time to die; but to you, in the reverse order, there was a time to die and a time to be born; and one and the same time effected both of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death.
5. O strange and inconceivable thing! we did not really die, we were not really buried, we were not really crucified and raised again; but our imitation was in a figure, and our salvation in reality. Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose again; and all these things He has freely bestowed upon us, that we, sharing His sufferings by imitation, might gain salvation in reality. O surpassing loving-kindness! Christ received nails in His undefiled hands and feet, and suffered anguish; while on me without pain or toil by the fellowship of His suffering He freely bestows salvation.
6. Let no one then suppose that Baptism is merely the grace of remission of sins, or further, that of adoption; as John's was a baptism conferring only remission of sins: whereas we know full well, that as it purges our sins, and ministers to us the gift of the Holy Ghost, so also it is the counterpart of the sufferings of Christ. For this cause Paul just now cried aloud and said, Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into His death. These words he spoke to some who were disposed to think that Baptism ministers to us the remission of sins, and adoption, but has not further the fellowship also, by representation, of Christ's true sufferings.
7. In order therefore that we might learn, that whatsoever things Christ endured, For Us and for Our Salvation He suffered them in reality and not in appearance, and that we also are made partakers of His sufferings, Paul cried with all exactness of truth, For if we have been planted together with the likeness of His death, we shall be also with the likeness of His resurrection. Well has he said, planted together. For since the true Vine was planted in this place, we also by partaking in the Baptism of death have been planted together with Him. And fix thy mind with much attention on the words of the Apostle. He said not, 'For if we have been planted together with His death,' but, with the likeness of His death. For in Christ's case there was death in reality, for His soul was really separated from His body, and real burial, for His holy body was wrapt in pure linen; and everything happened really to Him; but in your case there was only a likeness of death and sufferings, whereas of salvation there was not a likeness but a reality." - Cyril of Alexandria, Lecture XX. (on the Mysteries. II.) Of Baptism.
It is abnormal for this period for Gennadius of Constantinople to write you're saved by believing and calling, when that view is unorthodox for all of his peers.
I'm not saying he was a Martin Luther, but what I am saying is he held (in one commentary) a view that did not align with the historical period. And, even if he held contradictory views, that soteriology he wrote of is still a genuine doctrine he held, not to be minimized due to his beliefs on baptismal regeneration which might and do contradict.
Nevertheless, even IF YOU GRANT he was contradictory (emphasis on grant), this still means he taught salvation was given by believing and calling, and at other points taught water baptism.
And, even if inconsistent, he still taught at one point in his writing a soteriology that was something Dr. Peter S. Ruckman would be proud of.
And, may I remind you that his Romans 10 commentary is not a Tridentine initial justification with baptism, as you are saved according to Gennadius of Constantinople by believing and calling.
I am only saying that in the case of a Catholic Apologist reading this.
What would be interesting is, what did inspire Gennadius of Constantinople to write a theological doctrine which was not aligned with his peers? Did others hold it?
Diodore of Tarsus famously wrote “Necessarily he set forth ‘those who call upon him.’ For God does not give grace without discernment, extending it even to those who are unwilling to offer so much to the Benefactor as at least to ask and pray with him. And lest anyone say that many fail to call upon the Lord Jesus out of ignorance rather than unbelief and ingratitude, he shows through what follows that God took away even the excuse of their ignorance, sending evangelists and heralds who urge and invite them to ask for the gift. Therefore he added what follows.” - Diodorus of Tarsus/Diodore of Tarsus, Romans 10:11-13.
Gennadius of Constantinople's views were not in a vacuum. He was influenced by the Origenian idea of universalism, and he obviously was influenced by the 5th century idea of Baptismal regeneration.
What, then, inspired him to write a theology which taught salvation was given by believing and calling upon God?
