Facing the Other Fairly

J. Neil Daniels

One of the temptations of theological debate is the shortcut: relying on critics of an opposing view rather than hearing the voice of the other side itself. It is far easier, after all, to read John Jewel’s polemics against the Council of Trent than to trudge through the Latin decrees of the council itself. But the risk of that kind of secondhand engagement is obvious. We end up contesting caricatures rather than arguments, dueling with straw rather than oak. And so, if we are to be honest interlocutors, we must go to the sources—painfullu tedious though it may sometimes be.

Take Origen, for instance. Eusebius preserves fragments, Jerome passes judgments, later scholastics pull at his reputation like vultures at a carcass. But one only begins to grasp the restless brilliance and the occasional recklessness of Origen’s thought by opening De Principiis itself, noting where the Greek gives way to Rufinus’ Latin, and even where manuscript variations reveal layers of transmission and interpolation. That sort of direct encounter guards against the laziness of merely citing Athanasius’ complaints, which—even if largely justified—hardly suffice as an adequate account.¹

This practice of going to the well rather than drinking from downstream also spares us the embarrassment of repeating myths. For years, Martin Luther was accused of saying “sin boldly” as if it were a license for libertinism. The line actually comes from a private letter to Melanchthon (August 1, 1521), written while the Reformer was holed up in the Wartburg Castle translating the New Testament into German.² Reading the whole letter, rather than plucking one incendiary phrase, reveals the pastoral intention—Luther urging his colleague not to freeze in paralysis but to trust the abundance of grace. That one example suffices to show how secondary citation, untethered from context, can perpetuate distortions for centuries.

Of course, critics have their place. Calvin’s Institutes are not diminished by his fiery rebuttals of Cardinal Sadoleto’s appeal to Geneva in 1539; indeed, that exchange sharpened both men’s rhetoric. But if we only read Calvin through Sadoleto’s spectacles, or vice versa, our judgment falters. I find myself circling back to this whenever I am tempted to lean too heavily on later commentators. They may illuminate, but they can also occlude. The original text—warts and all—is the proper ground of argument, just as in law a judge must weigh testimony directly rather than contenting himself with gossip about the witness.

In the end, dealing fairly with opponents is not a matter of courtesy alone; it is a matter of truth. We honor the God of truth when we resist the urge to fashion an easier enemy and instead grapple with the real words, in their original cadence, as preserved in manuscripts and councils and letters across the ages. There is a kind of scholarly asceticism in this, not unlike the patience of monks copying codices line by line: slow, laborious, but faithful. And perhaps that fidelity, even in controversy, is itself a form of worship.

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¹ Origen, De Principiis, preface; cf. Jerome, Epistulae 84.

² Martin Luther, Letter to Philip Melanchthon, August 1, 1521, WA Br 2, 372.