If I can approach the question from a different perspective, what demarcates the "early" church? "Early" is relative. Perhaps
we might be considered members of the "early" church by a future generation.
True, there are Christians who were chronologically nearer to the apostles than we are. This no more guarantees or selects for theological "heirship" than does
our relative nearness to the apostles as compared to future generations. Scripture is the rule of faith.
Those qualifications in mind, as in most cases, the absolute best option is to read the primary sources. Given that, see
here. Of course, time is always a factor.
My next recommendation is to approach your research by topic of interest. What do you like to read about generally? Given the availability of search engines, reading what you have an interest in will greatly facilitate your willingness to follow through on your impetus for your post.
Lastly, I agree with Jacob not to overreach in your expectations. By the same token, it may
sometimes be helpful to read or listen to Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic apologists who
do overreach in this sense. This presupposes one has some wisdom and ability to discern.
I'll give an example. I have an interest in the topic of original sin and have been recently reading about and listening to the perspective of Eastern Orthodox adherents (they call it "ancestral" sin). Mostly, they seem completely clueless. One such example is at the end of
this video (the first video that shows up if you search for "original sin eastern orthodox" on Youtube and is explained by a Ph.D. and current priest):
...we have this development, this theological development which is based on this erroneous concept but we also have among the Reformers John Calvin who embraced a lot of the Augustinian concepts including predestination and he also embraced the understanding of Original Sin and the transmission of sin and guilt and the responsibility of Adam based on Augustine's understanding and that has been the case until this day for those who have followed the Calvinist understandings. Of course in the Orthodox Church this is not even a topic to be discussed because we do not see any such possibility of transmission of sin and guilt and responsibility in any possible way.
This is not even remotely in the same league as intramural debates amongst Reformed theologian such as is found in George P. Hutchinson's fantastic work,
The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterianism.
Or take the following from the introduction to another priest's (Romanides') book,
The Ancestral Sin:
Now we sin because we die, for the sting of death is sin. Sin reigns in death, in our corruptibility and mortality. Death is the root; sin is the thorn that springs from it.
This completely reverses cause and effect (Romans 6:23).
I've also seen several Eastern Orthodox apologists appeal to John Chrysostom (Romanides
and Eastern Orthodox apologists who disagree with him). Chrysostom says,
Seeing their children bearing punishment proves a more grievous form of chastisement for the fathers than being subject to it themselves.
Now, without fail, Eastern Orthodox apologists deny original guilt. But then how is it that they think children may
justly bear the punishment for another's sins? Whether Chrysostom himself believed this point is irrelevant. Hutchinson and the Reformed tradition deal with this question directly. Eastern Orthodox apologists seem barely aware of it.
On this note, it's helpful to see engagement between theologians or apologists of different traditions. Triablogue's Steve Hays went toe-to-toe with prominent Eastern Orthodox apologists. Another example may be found in
Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views. In it, Oliver Crisp responds to the Eastern Orthodox presentation (Andrew Louth, priest and Ph.D.) with the following:
In the context of expounding the doctrine of ancestral sin in terms of a web of human sinfulness going all the way back to our first parents, he raises the issue of whether this is sufficient as an account of sin. As he puts it, for defenders of original sin, like myself, the ancestral sin view “seems to leave open the possibility (even if totally exceptional) of someone living a blameless life.” And this, of course, is the fundamental worry Augustine had with Pelagius’s doctrine. The problem is, Louth never really addresses this objection to his position head on. He never explains how the Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin can avoid the traditional Augustinian objection that it leaves conceptual room for the existence of someone that is, for all practical purposes, without sin. This, it seems to me, is a serious lacuna in his presentation.
From the same book, the following remarks by another contributor are even better:
On a final note, the corruption-only position of ancestral sin is a flawed doctrine; it discounts the truths of imputation (and realism) implied in passages like Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 as well as the broader doctrinal synthesis of the whole Bible on which imputed guilt rests (see my marks to Crisp). I ask Louth, Are there any human beings apart from Christ who were perfectly sinless? Answering yes would suggest he has a defective hamartiology and Christology. Scripture is clear that with the exception of Christ all humans are sinners (e.g., Rom 3:9-20; 1 Jn 1:8); if we presume there were any sinless people, as perfectionists have claimed, such naiveté detracts from the glory of the incarnation and belittles the gravity of sin. I suspect Louth agrees. In that case, it must be our inherited corruption that makes sinning inevitable. But then how is this scenario just? Since no human is responsible for innate corruption, in his view, and since that same corruption leads inevitably to sin, it is unclear how ancestral sin fares any better than original guilt. The concerns surrounding divine justice remain.
This is just a sampling. I might make further remarks, such as that many Eastern Orthodox apologists will criticize Reformed theologians for accepting that we have corrupted wills but that Christ does not... yet they will turn around and accept that we have gnomic wills yet Christ does not. If a mode of will can be accepted in one case, just so for the other.
One more example. All Eastern Orthodox apologists I've encountered love Maximus the Confessor. It's almost as if you can't disagree with the guy. If that's the case, though, then what does someone like Jay Dyer (who rejects the aseity of the Son and Spirit, cf. mark 2:00:45
here) do with the following statement by Maximus (
link)?
Mystical theology teaches us, who through faith have been adopted by grace and brought to the knowledge of truth, to recognize one nature and power of the Divinity, that is to say, one God contemplated in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It teaches us to know God as a single unoriginate Intellect, self-existent, the begetter of a single, self-existent, unoriginate Logos, and the source of a single everlasting life, self-existent as the Holy Spirit: a Trinity in Unity and a Unity in Trinity. The Divinity is not one thing in another thing: the Trinity is not in the Unity like an accident in a substance or vice versa, for God is without qualities. The Divinity is not one thing and another thing: the Unity does not differ from the Trinity by distinction of nature; the nature is simple and single in both. Nor in the Divinity is one thing dependent on or prior to another: the Trinity is not distinguished from the Unity, or the Unity from the Trinity, by inferiority of power; nor is the Unity distinguished from the Trinity as something common and general abstracted in a purely conceptual manner from the particulars in which it occurs: it is a substantively self-subsistent essence and a truly self-consolidating power. Nor in the Divinity has one thing come into being through another: there is within it no such mediating relationship as that of cause and effect, since it is altogether identical with itself and free from relationships. Nor in the Divinity is one thing derived from another: the Trinity does not derive from the Unity, since it is ungenerated and self-manifested. On the contrary, the Unity and the Trinity are both affirmed and conceived as truly one and the same, the first denoting the principle of essence, the second the mode of existence. The whole is the single Unity, not divided by the Persons; and the whole is also the single Trinity, the Persons of which are not confused by the Unity. Thus polytheism is not introduced by division of the Unity or disbelief in the true God by confusion of the Persons.
It's helpful to realize that one's favorite theologian does not agree with one's own position. Once I myself realized that, I was able to develop my own views more healthily.
