Concepts of Salvation in the Western Church to the Sixteenth Century

Abstract

The first five centuries of Christianity reflected a process of catholicizing tendencies, institutionalizing, expansion and legal recognition. These same centuries defined theological orthodoxy by hammering out the issues on the anvil of conciliar debate. In general, the Vincentian canon of orthodoxy defined true Christian belief as that which has been believed everywhere, always and by everyone. On numerous dogmatic matters orthodoxy had clearly been established and agreed upon. Trinitarian dogma had been defined at Nicaea (325). Christological controversies had likewise been largely resolved: the person of Christ at Nicaea, the natures of Christ at Constantinople (381), the humanity of Christ at Ephesus (431) and the divinity of Christ at Ephesus (449) and Chalcedon (451). The process of canonization though never decreed by an ecumenical council was essentially concluded by the end of the fourth century. Issues surrounding ecclesiology and anthropology had likewise been formally debated. The doctrine of salvation, surprisingly, was another matter.