A Disappearing People: The Doctrine of Election and Predestination from Irenaeus to Augustine

In the span from Irenaeus to Augustine, the character of the doctrine of election changed dramatically. The broad contours of the doctrine from the second to the fifth centuries involve a decided shift from a fundamentally corporate conception to a fundamentally individual conception, from the election of the Church as a visible whole to the election of a hidden few, from election as the context of salvation to election as identified with salvation and destiny, from a fundamentally temporal and historical framework to a fundamentally eternal and ahistorical framework, from predestination being subsumed under election to election being subsumed under predestination, from an inclusive yet particular people to an exclusive aggregate, from the supposition of the historic and continuing election of Israel to the implicit denial of the election of Israel as a people, and finally from the Church as God’s chosen nation to the Roman Empire as taking over or at least sharing in the political dimension of the Church’s election.