The History of the Christian Church

This 1st episode of CS is titled, “It Begins.”The best place to start is at the beginning. But with Church History, where is that? Where do we begin?Most MODERN Christians would probably start with Jesus. That seems pretty straight-forward.But where would the FIRST Christians have begun?They were Jews, and considered what they believed as a purified form of Judaism; a faith Moses would have approved of. They believed Jesus was Messiah, the long hoped for & oft prophesied Savior Who came to restore the faith God revealed to Abraham 2000 years before.So à Where would Peter, Andrew, John, James, or Thomas have begun telling the story?The Apostle John begins his story of Jesus at creation with the words “In the beginning …” We’ll come up in time considerably and start with the man known as Jesus of Nazareth engaged in His public ministry; traveling through Northern Israel with a dozen disciples.At that time, the 1st Century of what modern historians like to called the Common Era, Israel was an uneasy part of the Roman Empire. Unlike some provinces that counted being part of Rome a privilege, Israel loathed their Roman occupiers. Most Jews resisted more than just political domination by a foreign power; they also despise the Greek culture the Romans brought with them.All this stirred the pot of popular expectation among Jews for the arrival of the Messiah who they anticipated would be primarily a political figure. Scripture foretold He’d replace corruption with paradise; the wicked would be punished, the righteous rewarded, and Israel exalted among the nations. Messiah would restore David's throne and rule over the affairs of Earth.Some prophets spoke of a war between good and evil that would resolve in the Messiah's victory. This flavored the anticipation of many. They cast Rome as the chief adversary Messiah would crush.By the 1st Century, different groups had developed around their belief in what was the right way to prepare for this political Messiah.The Pharisees devoted themselves to the Law of Moses and religious tradition.The Essenes took a segregationist approach, pursuing holiness by moving to isolated communes to await Messiah's arrival.Zealots advocated armed resistance against Rome as well as those Jews who collaborated with the hated enemy. Zealots drew their inspiration from the successful Maccabean Revolt against the Syrian Greeks a couple hundred years before.A 4th group were the Sadducees who took a more pragmatic approach to the Roman presence & accommodated themselves to the Greco-Roman culture they were convinced would eventually become the status quo. Sadducees were a minority but held most of the positions of political and religious leadership in Jerusalem.The last and by far largest group among the Jews of 1st Century is rarely mentioned; the Common People. They were neither Pharisee, Sadducee, Essene nor Zealot.  They were just à Jews; everyday people in covenant with God but preoccupied with fields, flocks, trades, markets, family, & well—Life; the daily grind. They held opinions regarding politics and religion but were too busy surviving to join one of the groups who claimed superiority to the others. It was these commoners who were most attracted to Jesus. They were drawn to Him because He did a masterful job of refusing to be co-opted by the elites.Jesus came in the traditional mode of a Rabbi, but was anything but traditional. Like other rabbis, He had disciples who followed Him, but His teaching stood in contrast to theirs. His words carried authority that challenged the thick, hard shell of tradition that had become encrusted round their religion.  Listening to Jesus wasn't like listening to a commentary on Torah, which so many other teachers DID sound like. Listening to Jesus was like listening to Moses himself, explaining what the law was meant to be and do. Then—Jesus did something that really made people pay attention; He validated His teaching by performing miracles. And not a few. He did many!It was a tough assignment to carve a path through Jewish society that didn't intersect with the Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots or Sadducees, but Jesus negotiated it perfectly. Both His life and teaching powerfully demonstrated genuine Judaism and revealed the shabby counterfeit of the religious pretenders. At first they tried to co-opt Him and turn his rising popularity to their agenda. When He refused to make common cause with them, they turned on Him.Jesus furthermore resisted the efforts of the common people to make him King. Their hope that He was Messiah swelled to the call that He claim Israel’s throne. They wanted a political leader. But that was not Jesus’ mission & He resisted their attempts to install Him as monarch.Jesus’ consistent message was the true nature of the Kingdom of God. Contemporary Judaism saw that Kingdom as primarily political, military, & economic. A realm in which …Israel would rule instead of Rome.Messiah would reign in place of Caesar.Judaism would replace paganism.And the sandal finally would be on the other foot. Jesus’ message was a much different take on the Kingdom. It wasn't about politics or economics. It was about the heart, the inner life. Jesus repeatedly emphasized that to be in covenant with God meant to be in an intimate relationship with Him, not as some distant, disinterested deity, but as a loving Father.Jesus’ popularity with commoners created jealousy on the part of the leaders. His unblemished example of a warm & endearing godliness revealed the pathetic shabbiness of the merely religious. When He cleared the Temple of the fraudulent marketplace the leaders used as a source of income, they decided it was time to get rid of Him. They convinced themselves they were only protecting the nation from Rome's wrath against the insurrection they claimed Jesus was sure to lead. They arrested Him, ran Him through a sham-trial, then turned him over to the Romans for execution, saying He encouraged rebellion; a charge Rome took quite-seriously. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, knew he was being played by the Jewish leaders but when they threatened to complain to Rome, already being on thin ice with the Emperor, he relented & turned Jesus over for scourging & crucifixion.As they turned away from Jesus’ cross late Friday afternoon, they thought, “Good riddance! At least we won't have to worry about Him anymore.”Yeah, good luck with that.Ch. 1 of Bruce Shelley's excellent book Church History In Plain Language begins with this line, “Christianity is the only major religion to have as its central event the humiliation of its God.”Anyone who’s decided to investigate the History of the Christian Church has probably wondered at the astounding success of the Faith in light of its central event & the belief that flows from it.An interview with the disciples the day after the crucifixion would in no way give anyone the idea Christianity would one day spread to the ends of the world & number in the billions.The transformation that took place among Jesus’ followers after His resurrection is convincing proof of His rising from the tomb. The disappointment that marked Jesus’ followers  immediately after His execution is understandable. What isn’t, is their amazing resurgence to carry on His mission. The only rational explanation for their continuation & the growth of the Jesus movement was the resurrection.By the 1st Century, Judaism had infiltrated much of the Roman Empire and had a small number of converts from among Gentiles in many cities. But these “God-fearers”, as they were called, were a tiny number considering how long Judaism had existed. The Jews had never embarked on a campaign to spread their faith. Gentile converts to Judaism were almost accidental and accommodated in the synagogue reluctantly. Yet within a century after the Resurrection, Christianity had spread across the Empire. The miraculous growth of the Church stands as eloquent testimony to its miraculous origin.And now for a little background on the CS podcast.What you’re hearing is a 3rd version of Season 1 of Communio Sanctorum. The number of subscribers has grown tremendously; with many saying they’ve listened to the episodes multiple times. Version 2 contained some material that was time-sensitive; news about podcast awards, a Reformation tour, and such. Things that are no longer applicable. I thought it best to redo the series omitting all that. The CS website is also being updated and a Spanish version is being produced. It seemed an apropos time to re-record Season 1 with a refresh of the content.I got turned on to the genius of podcasts a few years ago. Being a history nut, I went looking for my favorite subject – Rome – and found Mike Duncan’s brilliant podcast series the History of Rome. Now hooked, I next devoured Lars Brownworth’s 12 Byzantine Emperors & Norman Centuries. Then I went in search of a similar format podcast on Church history. I was looking for short episodes, easily listened to while working out, going for a run, or working in the yard. All I could find at that time were long lectures, most given in a college or seminary. And while the content was solid, they weren’t all that interesting. What I was looking for were episodes of between 15 & 20 minutes that would break Church history up into easily digested sessions.Not finding it, I decided to do it.So let me be clear. I’m not an historian, not even close. I love history & am a student of it. An historian is someone with access to, and does research on primary level materials. An historian is someone who gains familiarity with the past because she/he has interacted in some way with those who MADE history; if not them directly, then with the records and artifacts they left behind. All I can do is take the work of real historians, cull it, repackage it, then put it out there for whoever wants to engage it.The study of history is by nature filled with dates and names à and that’s where many would-be students find their eye

This episode of CS is titled – “Transitions”We ended the previous episode with Jesus on the cross just outside the walls of Jerusalem late Friday afternoon. The Jewish leaders & Romans thought that was the last of the enigmatic trouble-maker from Galilee. For that matter, His followers thought that was the end as well.If that HAD BEEN the end of Jesus’ story, how might history have labeled Him?Modern skeptics who consider the resurrection a mythic post-script, added by Jesus’ later followers, cast Jesus as a religious & social reformer; one whose goal was to turn the stiff formalism of 1st Century Judaism into a more personal & intimate faith in God. These skeptics recast the miracles attributed to Jesus as myths meant to explain the effect of His charismatic personality on others. They contend Jesus didn’t really turn a few fish & loaves into fish sandwiches for thousands; He merely used the generosity of a young boy to provoke the crowd to share with one another. He didn’t really walk on water, He merely came along the shore in a low lying mist. And He didn’t really rise from the dead; His example of love for God and others merely inspired the disciples to follow His example. His MEMORY endured, not His literal person; says the skeptic.So, WAS Jesus merely a reformer? Was His mission just to return Judaism to something Moses would have given a hearty thumbs-up to?While Moses would indeed endorse Jesus, He wasn’t merely one of the many prophets God sent to call people back to Himself. Moses would approve of Jesus because all Moses did pointed to & prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus was the original Former, not a RE--former; He was, the “I AM” Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush & commissioned him to lead Israel out of bondage, into the Promised Land.This becomes clear when we consider the words of Jesus at that last meal He shared with His disciples. When He took the cup to inaugurate the rite of Communion, He said something remarkable. “This is the NEW COVENANT in my blood which is shed for you.” Those young men sitting round that table could not mistake what Jesus meant, for it was something that had been burned into them since childhood. Jesus made claim to the cherished promise of the Prophet Jeremiah who in ch. 31 said,“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”Jesus laid claim to that promise, saying He was its fulfillment & what He was about to do in going to the cross would activate the New Covenant. Jesus didn’t come just to reform Judaism or refresh the covenant Moses mediated with Israel. He came to consummate that covenant and initiate a new, based not on the performance of the Mosaic Law, but on abiding faith in Him.Of course, if Jesus had remained in the tomb, He’d be nothing but a miniscule footnote to the history of the 1st Century, if that! à Just one more in a long parade of Jewish trouble-makers who had a little flurry of popularity among some malcontents. Nothing of consequence would have followed.But His resurrection changed everything. It turned His timid band of followers into men of unquenchable vision & voracious determination. Only the resurrection can account for the dramatic change that took place in those who’d followed Jesus.In writing to the Corinthians some years later, the Apostle Paul said that in His post-resurrection appearances, Jesus was seen by some 500 at one time—not just the original handful of disciples. It was this critical mass of witness that made sure the news of His resurrection wasn’t suppressed by the authorities. And it was the surety Jesus had been dead, then made alive that compelled His followers to remain faithful, even in the face of martyrdom.So, after a brief stint back in their home region of Galilee, the disciples permanently relocated to Jerusalem. It was reasonable that the center of their movement be at the heart of the Jewish world.Though Jesus said His followers would one day come from all over the world, those first believers had a difficult time seeing the Church as anything other than fundamentally Jewish. They met as a large group in the temple courtyard where they listened to the disciples teach on the life & words of Jesus. Because it was the way education was practiced in the 1st C, it didn't take long until a standard, stock story developed. This oral tradition formed the core of what was used by Matthew, Mark, & to a certain degree by Luke, when they wrote their Gospels. John already knew of those accounts & chose instead to write a story of Jesus that filled in some of the details not included in the official oral tradition.After the large group had listened to the teaching by the apostles, they broke into smaller groups to gather in homes where they shared a meal, prayed, & discussed what they’d just learned.There was little organization to this early movement of Jesus’ followers as they felt their way forward. Despite that lack of organization their faith blossomed & their community became marked by a remarkable love, attractive to others. Their numbers grew.They went by different labels. Some called them Nazarenes, meaning followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Others disparagingly called them "Christians" linking them to Jesus & His humiliating death on a Roman cross. They called themselves simply "People of the Way."The church grew in relative peace for a few years till their numbers became too large for the Jewish ruling Council, the Sanhedrin, to ignore any longer. As the apostles taught about Jesus, they realized a good part of what the Jews had been told their Scriptures meant was wrong. Some of the more bold believers began voicing their criticisms of contemporary Judaism. They ran afoul of the authorities & persecution began. When Stephen, a young Christian leader was executed for blasphemy, it sent a shock wave through Jerusalem. It was now clear Jesus' followers were under an official ban.While the 1st generation leaders, called “the apostles,” stayed in Jerusalem to tend to the needs of the Church, younger leaders moved to Samaria & Syria where they founded new communities. Churches sprang up in Damascus, Antioch, Egypt & other locales.These new communities, while still primarily Jewish in composition, were made up of Jews more acclimated to the Greco-Roman culture of the Mediterranean world than those in Jerusalem. When word reached the mother church in Jerusalem that new fellowships were springing up in other places, the apostles sent delegates to these new communities to establish a connection. One of the representatives they sent out was an elder named Barnabas. He visited the church in the Syrian capital of Antioch, 3rd largest city of the Roman Empire, with a population of a half-million. The church there was something new; a mixture of Jewish & Gentile believers. It was at Antioch the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians.”The readiness of Jewish believers at Antioch to welcome Gentiles into their fold shifted the focus of missionary activity from Jerusalem to Antioch. It was at Antioch that one man rose to leadership who would, next to Jesus, have the greatest impact on Christianity - Saul of Tarsus, or as he’s more commonly known, Paul.Paul's hometown was the Roman city of Tarsus, capital of Cilicia in what is today South Central Turkey, 20 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. The famous Roman General Pompey the Great had made Tarsus the center of Roman government in the area, granting its residents the treasured Roman citizenship. Tarsus was also a center of Greco-Roman culture. Paul was born to Jewish parents there, making him a unique mixture of Roman, Greek & Jewish. This all conspired to make him an effective instrument for spreading of the Gospel.After his early education in Tarsus, Paul moved to finish his training in Jerusalem under the great Jewish scholar Gamaliel. He became a member of the ultra-strict sect known as the Pharisees. Paul finished his training just as the followers of Jesus ran afoul of the authorities in Jerusalem. Whether Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin or merely their agent, it was he who presided at the execution of Stephen, lending those doing the deed their authority. Paul then embarked on a campaign to harass the Christians in the environs of Jerusalem. When the church there was effectively driven underground, he received official permission to carry his campaign of harassment to Damascus where rumors said Christians were thriving.But when Paul finally entered Damascus it was a very different man from the one who’d set out from Jerusalem a few days before. In a vision of the risen Christ, Paul realized Jesus was indeed the Messiah & the Gospel he’d been trying to stamp out wasn't a dangerous heresy; it was the Truth of God.When he returned to Jerusalem, the leaders of the Church were wary of him. After all, this was the guy who’d just ravaged them. But when it became clear he was a genuine believer, the apostles embraced him.Well à sort of.In reading the book of Acts & a couple of Paul's letters, we’re left with the impression while the core leadership at Jerusalem accepted Paul's conversion as legitimate, they preferred he find another church to attend. That church turned out to be Antioch where Paul pa

This week’s episode is titled "Strategic."We ended the last episode with a look at the different perspectives of 1st & 2nd Generation Christians. The debate centered on what role the Jewish law held for Jesus’ followers. Culturally-immersed 1st Generation Jewish believers tended to cleave to the law, while the more Greco-Roman acculturated 2nd & later generations adhered to the Gospel as articulated by the Apostle Paul.Keep in mind that Paul's arrival at the Gospel of Grace through Faith wasn't an easy journey. He began as a strict Pharisee, fanatically loyal to Moses & Jewish tradition. It was Paul who presided at the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. And Stephen was put to death precisely because he dared to say that the new covenant Jesus inaugurated superseded the old covenant installed by Moses & represented by the Temple & priesthood in Jerusalem which were now effectively obsolete in God’s plan. This drove the Jewish ruling council into a literal rage that led to Stephen’s death.Paul well understood the arguments of the Judaizing legalists who advocated adherence to custom. He understood them because he’d once held them. But he came to realize faith in Christ alone bestowed the righteousness God requires. Salvation was not the product of human work; it was a gift God bestows, a gift received by faith.Amped by this realization of salvation by grace through faith, Paul was compelled to take the Gospel were ever he could. The book of Acts describes 3 journeys he took to spread the Faith & plant churches.On his 1st journey he and his friend Barnabas went to the island of Cyprus & the urban centers of the mainland north of there, a province called "Galatia" in modern-day Turkey.On his 2nd adventure Paul went back over the fledgling fellowships begun on the previous journey, then travelled to the West coast of Asia Minor. Taking ship, he sailed across the Aegean Sea and landed in Macedonia. The Gospel had arrived in Europe, possibly for the first time.Then Paul swung south into Greece where he visited Athens & other key Greek cities. Returning to his home base at Antioch in Syria, he didn't stay long before once again setting out on a 3rd mission with the aim of planting churches in strategic locations.Paul had a plan. He didn’t just go wherever the winds of fancy drove him. He was strategic, recognizing the need to plant congregations in influential cities. He knew if healthy churches could be set up in the urban centers of the Empire they’d act as jumping off points for mission work to their surrounding provinces. The strategy worked & Christianity spread rapidly.We’re not unaware of the religious and philosophical environment the early Christians lived in. Outside Israel, much of the Roman Empire was a spiritual hodgepodge. The Greek & Roman pantheon was ubiquitous, with most commoners paying homage to the gods, not out of any genuine piety or devotion so much as out of a sense of civic duty. “Respect the gods or pay the price" was the attitude of the common people. Everyone had a duty to throw the gods their proverbial bone now and then, lest they get angry & withhold the rain-or-send floods. No one wanted to be the cause of disaster, so most went through the forms to pacify the gods & keep them off the collective back. But heartfelt devotion to the gods was rare.Living alongside this kind of generalized respect for the gods was a much less common, but far more devoted adherence by some to the philosophies of a handful of Greek sages. Guys like Epicurus & Zeno. The concern of such philosophies was how to have the best life. Though their ideas often contradicted the demands of the gods, many who held to Epicureanism, Stoicism or one of the other philosophies saw no tension between their beliefs & religious practices.But by the 1st Century, many across the Romans world had grown disillusioned with the old gods & old ways. Desiring something new, mystery cults from Egypt & the Far East took root. Though the official stance of Rome was to oppose these cults, there was something enticing in what was considered forbidden. Secret knowledge, imparted only to an elite stimulated curiosity. The cults of Isis & Mithras grew.One message that appealed to some pagans throughout the empire was Judaism with its radical proposition there was only One, all-powerful, all-knowing God. The Jews had taken their Faith out of the merely religious realm & developed a comprehensive and coherent philosophy with it. It convinced many Gentiles who began attending Jewish synagogues located all over the empire. Not willing to fully convert to Judaism with its kosher requirements & circumcision, these "God fearers" as they were called, believed in the God of Israel & renounced the pagan deities of their neighbors.When the Apostle Paul visited a new city he typically went first to the local Jewish synagogue where he systematically showed Jews & God-fearing Gentiles that Jesus of Nazareth was the long hoped-for Messiah and that faith in Him brought salvation. While a few Jews believed, it was from among the God-fearing Greeks Paul had his greatest response. When unbelieving Jews rejected & opposed him, he left their synagogue, taking the new converts with him and starting a church.On Paul's 3rd journey he spent about 3 years in the city of Ephesus in Western Asia Minor. His work there was probably the most fruitful of his career.When he returned to Jerusalem after this 3rd church planting foray, he was arrested by the authorities & carted off to the Roman administrative capital of Caesarea on the coast. He spent the next couple years in prison as a political pawn between Jewish & Roman officials. To end the stalemate, Paul appealed his case to Caesar, which as a Roman citizen he had the right to do. A tumultuous sea journey saw him finally deposited in Rome where the book of Acts ends with him under house arrest, awaiting trial.There’s some question as to whether Paul stayed in Rome until his execution by Nero or if he was released and later re-arrested & executed. There’s good reason to believe the initial charges against Paul were dropped, he was released, visited the churches he’d planted earlier, then came back to Rome where he was arrested in Nero’s round up of Christians after the great fire that destroyed a large part of the City. Paul was then executed in AD 64.Let's end this episode with a look back at Jerusalem & the church there.Even though the 1st Generation believers adhered to the Mosaic law, the opposition of the Jewish authorities to the followers of Jesus grew until it broke out in official persecution.About AD 41 John's brother James was murdered at the order of Herod Agrippa, the Roman-installed ruler who was forever trying to curry the favor of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Herod knew the Council wanted to crush the new movement of Christians and thought to gain their good-will by getting rid of James. When he saw the favorable reaction of the Sanhedrin, he had Peter arrested as well. But before Peter could be executed, a miraculous prison-break set him free. Peter then left for an extended missionary journey through Syria, Asia Minor, Greece & eventually Rome where, along with Paul, he was also swept up in Nero’s purge.What comes as a bit of a surprise is to find in the NT that the church at Jerusalem was led by Jesus's brother James rather than one of the original Apostles. That the church leadership was assumed by James gives us a clue that the church was originally cast in the form of the Jewish synagogue, where leadership was usually passed to a relative.In AD 62, James was bludgeoned to death at the command of the high priest who was furious the Church kept growing despite the increased persecution coming against it. James’ death left the Jerusalem church leaderless & discouraged.During the mid-60’s, things in Israel became increasingly sketchy as tension between Jews and Romans grew. The completion of the Temple in 64 turned thousands of workers into an unruly & discontent mob. One inept decision after another by the Romans sparked a major revolt in 66. Though the Jews were able to pull off several astounding early victories over the Romans, the Emperor’s response was a brutal war of annihilation that crushed all opposition over the next several years.From the Jewish perspective, AD 70 was the year Christianity and Judaism officially broke. At the outset of the Jewish revolt, the Christians of Jerusalem were warned in a vision to flee the city. They did. But their fellow Jews considered this an act of high treason. Shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jewish leaders used the Christians’ flight from Jerusalem as the basis to ban them from all synagogue services. Any Jew who wanted to remain faithful to his religion could no longer follow Christ. The break was now complete.As the Church became increasingly composed of Gentiles with little to no background in the Jewish roots of Christianity, this break would devolve into an antagonism that became hostile and violent. That historic hostility remains a blot on the Church to this day – and in the mind of many Jews, sadly hinders the message of the Gospel.

This 4th Episode is titled, “Martyrs.”Modern marketing tactics first produced, and now feed contemporary culture's obsession for “the latest thing.”  The slogan & label "New & Improved" is a frequent feature in packaging.The opposite was the case in 1st Century Rome. That Eternal City, and really most of the ancient world, was suspicious of anything new and novel, especially when it came to ideas. They had tremendous respect for tradition, believing what was true had already been discovered and needed to be preserved. Innovation was grudgingly accepted, but only in so far as it did not substantially alter tradition.The religion of the Greeks and Romans was sacrosanct precisely because it was ancient. Judaism, with its fierce devotion to only one God was incompatible with the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, but it was tolerated by the Romans precisely because it was ancient.Also, while Jews were fiercely loyal to their religion & became violent when attempts were made to convert them to paganism, they were not, as a rule, engaged in making converts of others. Judaism is not, by nature, a proselytizing faith.Christianity's early struggle with Rome began in earnest when Judaism officially denounced the Christians and banish them as a movement within Judaism. This took place shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Until that time, followers of Jesus were considered as a kind of reform movement within Judaism. But toward the end of the 1st Century, Rome realized the Jews had divorced themselves from the Christians. Christianity was something new; a religious novelty; so, under suspicion.And whereas Judaism tended not to proselytize, Christians couldn't help winning others to their Faith. This brought Christianity into close scrutiny by the authorities. The more they investigated, the more concerned they grew. Like the Jews, Christians believed in one God. But their God had become a man. Christians had no idols, practiced no sacrifices, & built no temples. These were yet more religious innovations that fired suspicion. The Christians seem to be so reductionist in their practice they were suspected of being, get this à Atheists.As we saw in the previous episode, the paganism practiced by most people of the Empire in the 1st & 2nd Centuries wasn't so much a heart-felt devotion to the gods as it was a sense of civic duty. “Respect the gods by visiting their temples with the proper offerings, or, suffer their wrath.” à Well, every new convert to the Christians meant one less pagan throwing their appeasing bones to the watchful & increasingly upset gods. People began to worry the growing neglect of the gods would lead to trouble. And indeed, whenever a drought, flood, fire, or some other catastrophe ensued it was inevitably blamed on "Those atheists = the Christians."“Christians to the lions,” became a frequent solution to the ills of the world.The concern of the pagans was ill-attributed, but well-founded. Not because their gods were angry, but because in some places so many had become Christians the pagan temples were nearly empty.  Acts 19 tells us this happened in Ephesus and a letter from the Governor of Bithynia in the early 2nd Century repeats the concern. This led to a growing call for punishment of the Christians. A few would be rounded up and put to death to prove to the gods the earnestness of the pagans to appease them.Other factors that encouraged hostility towards believers was their secrecy. A description of Christians by Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, to the Emperor Trajan in AD 111 is enlightening. Pliny had already executed some Christians based on little more than their scandalous reputation. He’d given them an opportunity to recant but when they refused, Pliny saw this rebuff of his mercy as a provocative stubbornness worthy of punishment. But after a flurry of executions, Pliny had 2nd thoughts: Was the mere reputation of Christians dangerous enough to warrant their arrest and trial? So he wrote his friend, the Emperor Trajan, asking for advice.  Here’s a quote from Pliny's letter. After describing some ex-Christians who recanted their faith, Pliny gives their report on what their practice had been when they were still Christians."They affirmed the whole of their guilt was that they were in the habit of meeting on a fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a God, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to commit any wicked deeds; no fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it. After which it was their custom to separate, then reassembled later to partake of food — but food of an ordinary an innocent kind.”A little later in the letter Pliny adds that to verify this report he secured through the torture of 2 slaves that this was an accurate description of Christian meetings and that nothing more needed to be added. Pliny called Christianity a “depraved and excessive superstition.”Emperor Trajan replied to Pliny’s request for guidance on how he wanted the growing Christian-crisis in Bithynia handled. Trajan replied . . .“You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out. If they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.”Though seemingly harmless to us, it was Pliny’s reference to the Christians “meeting before dawn” that proved a problem. While it looks to us a commendable reference to their diligence & earnestness, it was highly suspicious to Romans. As a rule, meetings during the dark hours were forbidden. Day was the time for meetings. To meet at night was suspect. No good could come of it. You met at night because you had something to hide.So why DID Christians meet before daylight if it raised suspicions?The answer lies in the composition of their Fellowship; that is, who attended. For the most part, they were commoners and the poor who had jobs they had to begin early. The only time available to meet was before the workday began.These early meetings of the church were only open to Christians. Secrecy tends to breed gossip. It didn’t take long till wild rumors were going round about the abominable things the Christians must be doing. Their communal meal, called the Agape or Love-Feast, was recast by gossip as a wild and debauched orgy. Communion was said to be ritual cannibalism. But the real shocker was that when Christians met, social distinctions like rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, were subsumed under an appalling equality. Many critics of Christianity saw this as a dangerous subversion of the natural order. Christians were cast as radical revolutionaries out to turn the entire world upside down.For a society that lived in constant fear of a slave uprising, anything seen as encouraging slaves to think independently was deemed perilous. Don’t forget that for the Romans, the 3 Servile Wars, the last & most perilous led by the famous Spartacus, were still potent in the collective memory, though it had ended over a century before.Another source of trouble for Christians was their Jewish origin. Even though Judaism worked hard to distance itself from the followers of Christ, in the mind of the average Roman, the Church was a Jewish thing. In many places, Jews were the main accusers of Christians to the authorities. But this failed to dislodge Christians from their Jewish roots. The bloody and troubling Jewish Wars of the 1st & 2nd Centuries created great hostility between Romans and Jews, which spilled over onto Christians.During the 2nd & 3rd Centuries, believers were arrested and executed on no worse crime than being accused of being a Christian. Hauled before a judge, they were given the opportunity to recant. They could do so by invoking the names of some pagan deities, offering a sacrifice to the image of the Emperor, and cursing Christ. If they refused this threefold evidence of being a pagan, they were led off to execution.One story is illustrative. In the mid-2nd Century during the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, a woman became a Christian. Marital problems led to her divorce. Resenting her, the ex-husband accused her of being a Christian. She was arrested, along with her pastor, for being a co-conspirator with her in causing the changes that caused the divorce. The pastor's name was Ptolemaeus.The jailer was cruel & tried to force Ptolemaeus to turn from his faith. Ptolemaeus resisted and the day of his trial arrived. The judge, Urbicus, put it straight to him, “Are you a Christian?” Ptolemaeus admitted he was. Urbicus pronounced him guilty and Roman justice being swift, he was led off to immediate execution.As he was being led away, a spectator, Lucius by name, rose to speak. He challenged Urbicus’ decision. Lucius asked, "Why did you pass such a sentence? Was this man convicted of a crime? Is he an adulterer, a murderer, a robber? All he did was confess that he was a Christian!"The judge replied, "It seems you are also a Christian."Lucius answered, "Yes, I am.”Urbicus had the guards seize & haul him off to be executed along with Ptolemaeus.At this, a 3rd man rose, issuing a similar challenge. When Urbicus asked if he was also a believer the man admitted both his faith and disbelief that death could ensue for no more reason than identifying w/a name. But the point is this: Urbicus believed he was well with in his authority to execute all 3 of these m

This episode is titled “Writings.”The history of the Christian Faith & Church inevitably has to deal with the importance of Books. From its earliest days the Faith has been intimately linked to the Scriptures. At first, Scripture was the Hebrew Bible or what is known today as the Old Testament. But other writings were added to the Church’s Bible as the years passed.The question of what writings to include in the Bible was one of the major topics of discussion during the first 4 centuries. But the question of what ought to be included or excluded is not nearly the contentious debate skeptics claim. With rare exception, church leaders generally agreed what texts comprised Scripture. Their reluctance to make an official pronouncement was because humility prohibited them claiming the authority to do so. Still, by the 4th Century, Church leaders recognized time was running out on those who were in a position to make the needed determination.Following the age of the martyrs, the next period of Church history was marked by theological challenge. It was crucial local congregations have a standard to go by, an authoritative body of doctrine by which to evaluate what was being taught. That authority was the Bible.Christians started with those Scriptures the Jews already revered as God’s Word, the Tanach, or as Christians referred to it, the OT. To this base of 39 books, believers added another set of writings they called the New Testament. Together, these 2 Testaments comprise what's called the “Canon of Scripture.”Canon means a measuring rod, as in a ruler. The Canon of Scripture is the standard for measuring if something is straight, if it aligns with truth. The Bible was esteemed Truth because it was regarded as God's inspired & inerrant Word.And that's what proved such a daunting challenge to Church leaders as they considered what to include in the NT Canon. Who were they to decide what was inspired by the Holy Spirit & ought to be regarded as the standard by which to evaluate all else? Still, the task was necessary so they developed a criteria by which to decide what ought to be included in the Canon. Their reasoning went like this . . .First was the OT canon of Jewish Scriptures. Then Jesus came as the Word of God made flesh. Though Jesus wrote no books, His life and words were written on the hearts and minds of the Apostles, whose teaching in both oral & written form was accepted as authoritative.Early evidence makes it clear that letters from the Apostles were circulated & read in the churches, being accepted as laying down the norms of Christian belief and practice. A ravenous hunger for stories of Jesus moved the Apostles to develop a standard oral tradition that we see today forming the core of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, & to a certain degree, Luke.But how do we get to the 27 books that form today's NT canon? What criteria did Church leaders use when they finally identified those books?1St - A candidate writing for inclusion had to have a self-identifying quality about it as having been inspired by God. It had to possess a certain power to affect the lives of readers toward God.2nd - A candidate writing had to have a long reputation among the churches for having been used in worship to the edification of believers.3rd - A writing had to have a close connection to an Apostle. If not written by the Apostle himself, was the author a close associate of an Apostle & did it bear the mark of the Apostle’s influence?For example . . .Luke wasn’t an apostle but his Gospel and the Book of Acts are included in the NT because he was a close associate of the Apostle Paul and had interviewed the other Apostles in researching Jesus’ story.Mark wasn’t an apostle, but received his information about Jesus from the Apostle Peter. He was also a companion of Paul’s; sort of. But that’s another story.On the other side of the issue, in the late 1st Century, Clement, the 2nd or 3rd pastor at Rome, wrote a letter to the church at Corinth. That letter was read often at Corinth in the years that followed and proved of great benefit. But because Clement wasn't deemed to have an Apostolic connection, his letter wasn't included in the NT canon. There wasn't even much debate if it should be. It didn’t pass the test, so it wasn’t included.Because the test of Apostolic origin was crucial to canonical books, the Church leaders of the late 2nd Century realized time was running out on reliable witnesses who could confirm a writing’s Apostolic authority. The pressure was on to put their imprimatur of acceptance on those works connected to the Apostles.Since we’re speaking about the writings that made it INTO the NT, let me mention a couple of influential works that didn’t but were nevertheless crucial in shaping the early understanding of the Faith.One of the most important extra-Biblical writings of the early church was the Didache.  We don’t know when it was written but it was in use as a manual for church life by the 1st decade of the 2nd C. The Didache gives instructions for how to conduct services, worship, baptisms, Communion, and what was turning into a growing problem, how to exercise church discipline. The Didache also had instructions for how to discern heresy. The last section contains instructions for how to live in light of the Lord’s return – which lends tremendous weight to the idea of imminency.Pardon me for a little personal comment here but it’s hard to resist.But even before I make that comment, I need to comment – on my comments. And I need to – because I got a great email from a faithful subscriber who told me he’s recommend the podcast to a lot of friends & acquaintances. A few of them told him they enjoyed the podcast, until my particular bias came out. Then, I guess they stopped listening. And he was bummed, because he likes the podcast and puts up with my occasional personal commentary, because well, he mostly agrees with it, but also because the rest of the podcast steers a pretty unbiased course through the subject matter.We had a nice little email dialog and I shared WHY I DO make occasional comments. I realized while writing him that I ought to share that here. He thought it was a good idea. So here goes . . .I share infrequent remarks & personal opinion for 2 reasons . . .1) You get to know me a little better. With my favorite podcasts, after I’ve listened for a while, I find myself wanting to know more about the author. So when they share little tid-bits about themselves, it’s fun & makes the whole experience more relational. I don’t want to hear a whole podcast about their cat, but hearing they have one makes the author more real, rather than just a formless voice.2) It’s good for us to hear the opinions of those we differ with, in their own voice, rather than told what they said or believe by those of our own persuasion. The followers of Jesus ought to be aimed at relational maturity, & that means accepting there’s a big world out there filled with people who don’t all agree with us. Learning to respect them and let them speak, without feeling like I’ve betrayed some kind of loyalty to God is crucial. I can listen w/o agreeing. In fact, I need to, because often times, by listening, I realize what others TOLD me they believed, ISN’T! And even if it is; persuading them isn’t going to be furthered by shutting them off & turning away because I don’t agree.If you’ve gone to the sanctorum.us website, you probably know I’m a pastor of an Evangelical non-denominational church called CC in Southern CA. So my comments will be what can generally be called a conservative, Protestant position. If you’re interested in more detail, you can visit our church website, which you can track down by going to the sanctorum.us website. When I do make one of those comments, I’ll try to remember to preface it with a disclaimer, a notice, so you can make whatever mental adjustment you need to. I would just ask that you hear me out. You don’t have to agree. I don’t expect everyone will. But please don’t toss the rest of the podcast for the sake of what I really do think is an important part of making this podcast better by being more personal.So, with all that preface – now to it. We were talking about how the last section of the Didache is instructions for how to live in light of the Lord’s return – which lends tremendous weight to the idea of imminency.I’m rather tired of hearing that “No one believed in a pre-tribulation rapture until Margaret MacDonald & John Darby made it up in the 1830’s.” The vast majority of people who say that do so because they heard someone else say it. They haven’t done any historical work to see if it’s true. It isn’t. And even it if WAS – it makes as much sense as saying Sola Scriptura & Sola Fide were made up by Martin Luther & John Calvin in the 16th C. That’s absurd! Does the neglect of a Biblical reality for hundreds of years make it any less true? All John Darby did was restore much needed attention to a neglected belief of the Apostles & Early Church. A belief amply supported by the sense of urgency found in the Didache.Okay, end of commentary; back to the history . . .Another writing early Christians used to amplify their faith was called The Shepherd of Hermas. This work from the late 1st to mid-2nd C was written by Hermas, a former slave who says an angel appeared to him in the form of a shepherd & dictated the contents of the book.It contains 5 visions, 12 commands & 10 parables. It’s highly allegorical and addresses problems that divided the Church, calling the faithful to repent.The Shepherd was so influential that a handful of the Early Church Fathers thought it ought to be included in the NT. But its failure, like Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians, to hold a clear Apostolic connection precluded its inclusion.Another event, a highly unfortunate situation, forced the hand of the Church leaders in moving to complete the canon.A heretic named Marcion [Mar-key-own] set up a counterfeit c

This week's episode is titled “Buy One, Get One Free.”In the last episode we touched briefly at a heretic named Marcion. He was one of the first to introduce a false teaching that would evolve into a major challenge to the emerging Christian Faith; that errant movement was known as Gnosticism.Marcion was the son of the pastor of the church in Pontus, on the Southern coast of the Black Sea. He was a ship-owner sailing passengers & shipping cargo throughout the Empire. Around AD 140, Marcion’s father disfellowshipped him from the congregation. This was the result either of Marcion’s seduction of a young woman, his increasingly heretical ideas, or both. Whatever the reason, he relocated to Rome where he was unknown & his reputation was untarnished. When he made a large contribution to the church at Rome, it greased the wheels of his acceptance as a member in good standing.But Marcion soon began espousing ideas that diverged from what the elders taught. In his previous travels, Marcion had been influenced by a teacher named Cerdo, an early advocate of what today is known as Gnosticism.Now, let me be clear, Gnosticism was more a religious trend than a united movement with a settled set of doctrines. While Gnostics held a common set of core beliefs, they interpreted them widely. This makes describing Gnosticism difficult. Generally, we can say it was a mash-up of àGreek philosophy,Eastern mystery cults, andChristian terminology. From Greek philosophy, Gnostics borrowed the idea that all physical matter was inherently an unalterably evil, while the spiritual realm was equally, inherently & unalterably good. From esoteric & occult Eastern mystery sects they took the idea there was a secret body of knowledge that when understood granted enlightenment. This enlightenment was the Gnostic equivalent of salvation because it liberated one’s consciousness from mere physical existence into a kind of permanent spirituality.Gnosticism took its name from this idea of “salvation thru enlightenment.” The Greek word ‘gnosis’ means ‘knowledge.’Because the Christian movement was growing rapidly, Gnostics adopted Christian forms & terms as a sneaky marketing ploy, hoping to pawn off their ideas as an elite form of Christianity. The ploy worked & Gnosticism took root in several congregations just as winds of false teaching do in every generation.Marcion was one of the first to introduce Gnostic elements in his highly-edited form of Christianity. Drawing from Cerdo, he proposed 2 different gods; an angry, vengeful OT deity, & a warm, fuzzy father-figure of the NT. Toting the Gnostic line, Marcion said the physical body was evil & promoted a rigorous asceticism that denied all physical pleasure. Marcion’s followers took communion by drinking water because wine was too tasty. They went so far as to say even marital sex was taboo.Marcion claimed Jesus was not born of Mary. He said Jesus appeared at Capernaum in AD 29 as a grown man. Note that = Jesus only appeared. Marcion said Jesus didn't have a literal body. He couldn't since being physical, the body was evil. Jesus only appeared, or seemed to have a body; in truth, he was more phantom than tangible.This is called Docetism; one of the earliest forms of Gnosticism. Docetism comes from the word meaning to seem. Marcion said the death & resurrection of Christ weren't literal; they couldn't be since Jesus wasn't corporeal. They were just a phantom demonstration of God's love and sacrifice. Though the church at Rome quickly became hip to Marcion’s theological shenanigans & declared his ideas heretical in 144, they gained some traction and Marcion set up a counterfeit church in both Italy & in Asia Minor where the Eastern mystery cults were popular.  Marcionite fellowships reached as far as Arabia & Egypt & were still operating well into the 4th Century.Marcion’s was only one of several streams of Gnosticism that developed during the 2nd & 3rd Centuries to challenge Christian orthodoxy. The main feature of all the Gnostics was their sharp dualism, splitting up the physical & spiritual into utterly divergent realms. They believed the spiritual realm contained a hierarchy of spiritual beings who were layered upward toward a transcendent & ultimate spirit. This transcendent god had given rise to a lower deity, which had done likewise, & so on over thousands of spiritual emanations until there was a spirit distant enough from the origin to be so low as to be able to create the physical universe. Some Gnostics like Cerdo & Marcion, said this lowly creator spirit was the Jewish God of the OT.Gnostics believed that sparks of divinity, little portions of pure spirit were locked inside some, but not all, humans. Those who had them, they said, would become Gnostics. Another clever marketing ploy; after all, who doesn’t want to think they have a little spark of something special? So, they were tempted to go Gnostic to prove they did. The next step was to pay one of the Gnostic teachers the requisite fee to learn the Gnosis, that is, the secret knowledge, so they could have their divine spark fanned into full flame.Voilà = Enlightenment!It was an ancient version of, “The first lesson is free, but if you want to go deeper, well, that’s going to cost you. Oh, & by the way, if you’re smart, you WILL join us – because that’s what smart holders of the divine spark do. You want to be one of the special one’s don’t you? Well, sign up, pay the fee & you’re in! Oh and BTW – if you sign up today, it’s half off.”Okay, I obviously made that last part up, but once you realize what the Gnostic teachers were all about, you wouldn’t’ really be surprised if they did have ancient versions of all the modern sales gimmicks. Family & group plans, Buy One; Get One Free, No Shipping.For the Gnostics, Enlightenment equaled Salvation. It was the realization they weren’t mere humans devoid of the divine spark, so little better than animals. They were earth-bound spirits destined to re-emerge with the divine hierarchy, that series of emanations from the supreme, transcendent God. Gnosticism was a stepped progression of spiritual growth whereby members increased their rank by paying their Gnostic guides more & more to learn increasingly powerful gnosis. If this sounds similar to a modern religious group that calls itself by a similar name = Something like, uhhh à Knowledgeology = Well there really is nothing new under the sun.Gnosticism presented a challenge to the Church for a couple of reasons.First = Gnostics used many of the same terms Christians used. This confused novices and those not properly taught. It’s something pseudo-christian cults do to this day. They use orthodox vocabulary but pour different meanings into the words.Second = It’s human nature to be attracted to that which is secret, hidden & mysterious; and that’s what the Gnostics were all about.Third = The Gnostics believed they were superior to others. This appealed to ever-present pride. The Bible teaches that humans were created in the image of God & originally destined for glory. There’s a latent sense of a call to glory that lingers in the soul. Greatness beckons us all. Gnostics said this was the divine spark & only they could activate it.Fourth = Human nature assumes something as important as salvation has to be costly. There’s no such thing as a free-lunch. The Christian Gospel says while salvation is by God’s grace & free to us, it’s supremely costly to God because it cost the Life of Christ. But many miss this & think grace is utterly free.  The Gospel’s message of salvation by grace seemed thin & weak to those convinced there had to be work involved, compared to the Gnostic campaign of "Pay to Play."What comes as a surprise is to realize the first real doctrinal challenge to Christianity was not over Jesus’ deity. It was over His humanity. Today, most controversy is over Jesus being God. It’s easy to see Him as a man. What’s more difficult is to understand how the human and divine come together in the Incarnation, so this becomes one of the main points of contention with non-Christian and the cults. The Docetism of Marcion and other Gnostics maintained Jesus's divinity but denied his humanity.And let me just give a bit of a teaser for some of our later episodes when we get to the 4th & 5th Centuries. Turns out the battles that went on in the church over how to understand the dual nature of Christ became a bloody & contentious period of Church history. One of the Church Councils is nick-named the Gangster Synod because the church leaders who attended it beat each other up over this issue. è Fun times!Back to Gnosticism . . .Other branches of the Gnostics taught Jesus & Christ were 2 separate entities. Jesus was just a man with a human mother & father while Christ was a spirit that descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, ministered thru him for 3 yrs, then departed in the Garden of Gethsemane. So the man that died on the cross was just a spent shell; his death accomplished nothing in terms of salvation. These Gnostics claimed that the Christ-spirit or Christ-consciousness continued to inhabit their leaders & could come upon anyone who showed sufficient enlightenment.Like Marcion with his abbreviated list of approved books we considered in the previous episode, the Gnostics edited portions of the NT that spoke of Christ's physicality. They couldn’t have Him writing in the dust of the ground or eating after the resurrection because, well, spirits don’t do those kinds of things. They also had to insert episodes into the Jesus-story that gave an opening for their aberrant theology. The recent spate of alternative Gospels that have made the news are for the most part Gnostic Scriptures known to the early church but rejected for their spurious origin and dubious Gnostic purpose. They weren't included in the NT canon because they didn't meet the strenuous criteria used to validate accepted writings.As I mentioned, there were several branches or streams of Gn

This episode is titled, “The Spreading Tree “Tertullian, pastor of the church of Carthage in North Africa, addressed unbelievers at the beginning of the 3rd C, saying à“We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left to you only your temples.”That introduces our theme for this episode; the expansion of the Faith in the early centuries.Writing in the middle of the 2nd C, Justin Martyr said,“There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons—among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things.”Comments by other Early Church leaders like Irenæus, Arnobius, & Origen lead us to conclude that by the end of the 3rd C the name of Christ was known, revered, & persecuted in many provinces & cities of the Roman Empire. In one of his edicts, the Emperor Maximian says that “almost all” had abandoned the worship of the old gods for the new sect called Christianity.In the absence of hard numbers, tallying the number of Jesus’ followers can’t be precise, but a reasonable assumption of the faithful stands about 10 to 12% of the total population at the beginning of the 4th C. In some places, the number was much higher as local movements saw the Gospel take firmer root. According to Chrysostom, the Christian population of the city of Antioch at the end of the 4th C. was half the whole.While 10% of the entire Empire may not seem that impressive a number, keep in mind that 10% shared a spiritual unity that made them appear a far larger group when set over against the highly-fragmented 90% of the pagan world.Looking back to Asia where the whole thing started, the Apostles had spread the new faith over Israel, Syria, & Asia Minor. According to Pliny the Younger, at the dawn of just the 2nd C, the pagan temples in Asia Minor were almost completely neglected & animal sacrifices hardly performed because so many pagan had converted to the new faith.In a first step of what would prove to be a major outreach to the East, during the 2nd C Christianity took root in the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia along with several regions in Persia. In the 3rd C., it reached North into Armenia & South into Arabia.There’s an enduring legend that the apostles Thomas & Bartholomew carried the Gospel to India. For sure, a Christian teacher named Pantaeus of Alexandria went there about 190. By the 4th C, vibrant national churches were growing in the subcontinent.It was the moving of the seat of power from Rome to Constantinople in the early 4th C that helped ensure the migration of the Faith eastward. It also meant that all the important early Church Councils were held in or around Constantinople.  The great doctrinal controversies over the Trinity & Nature of Christ were carried out mostly in Asia Minor, Syria, & Egypt.Speaking of Egypt, Christianity in Africa gained a firm foothold first there, during the time of the Apostles. The city of Alexandria was a world center of learning & culture. It’s libraries & schools drew from all over the world and many Jews called it home. It was in Alexandria that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, 200 yrs before Jesus. This Greek Bible, called the Septuagint, opened the seemingly opaque ideas of the Jews to Gentiles seekers after truth for the first time. It was in Alexandria that the religion of Moses was set alongside the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. It was there the Jewish philosopher Philo sought to harmonize Greek & Jewish thought. Many of his ideas were picked up by later Christian apologists in defending the faith against Roman misconceptions.Ancient tradition says it was Mark who laid the foundation of the church in Alexandria, which became one of the 5 most important & influential churches of the first Centuries. A theological school flourished in Alexandria from the 2nd C in which the great church fathers Clement & Origen taught. From Alexandria, the Gospel spread South into Nubia (modern Sudan) & Ethiopia. At a council of Alexandria in 235, 20 African bishops attended from all over the Nile basin.During the 4th C, in a subject we’ll treat more fully in a later episode, Egypt coughed up the Arian heresy, then quickly answered it with Athanasian orthodoxy. Egypt was the birthplace of monasticism as practiced by its earliest advocates, Antony & Pachomius. Monasticism then spread across the rest of the Christian world. But that’s yet another subject for a couple later episodes.Christianity spread from Egypt across the rest of North Africa quickly. It helped that there were numerous Roman outposts reached by 3 or 4 days sailing from Italy. The faith spread rapidly over the fertile fields & burning sands of Mauritania & Numidia, taking root in Carthage. In 258 a synod of 87 bishops met there & just 50 yrs later the Donatists held a council of 270 bishops.It may be of interest to some listeners that the oldest Latin translation of the Bible, called the “Itala” & was the basis of Jerome’s “Vulgate”, was produced in Africa for Africans, not in Rome for Romans, because the Christians there used Greek. Latin theology also wasn’t born in Rome, but in Carthage. Tertullian was its father. Latin theology then grew in North Africa to find its zenith in the world of Augustine of Hippo, another North African city. The influence of Augustine simply cannot be overstated, as we’ll see.After reaching Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and a narrow band of North Africa, the Expansion of the Faith stalled. Whether or not it would have renewed its reach further South becomes moot in light of the Conquest of Islam in the 7th & 8th Cs.Tracking the expansion of the Faith into Europe, we pick up the report of the early church historian Eusebius who said by the middle of the 3rd C the Church at Rome had a bishop, 46 elders, 7 deacons with 7 assistants, 42 acolytes which we can think of as “interns,”  50 readers, exorcists, & ushers; & 1500 widows & poor who were under its care. From these numbers we guesstimate the actual membership of the Church at about 50,000 or 1/20th of the City’s population. The strength of Christianity in Rome is confirmed by the enormous extent of the catacombs where Christians were buried.From Rome, the church spread to all the cities of Italy. The first Roman synod we know of was held in the mid-2nd C and had 12 bishops in attendance. A century later there were 60.An official persecution of the followers of Christ in Gaul in 177 shows the church had to already be there and large enough as to raise the concern of the authorities. The faith arrived in Gaul, not from Rome, but from Asia Minor. We know that because Irenæus, the bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna & Irenaeus reported in to his peers in Asia Minor rather than to Rome. It wasn’t till the middle of the 3rd C that Rome sent missionaries to Gaul. One of them was Dionysius who founded the first church at Paris, then died a martyr at Montmartre to become the patron saint of France.Spain was most likely reached with the Faith in the 2nd C. The Council of Elvira in 306 saw 19 bishops assemble to catch up and discuss the work of their various provinces. The apostle Paul once formed the plan of a missionary journey to Spain, and according to Clement of Rome he did preach there.Irenæus reported that the Gospel had been preached to the Germans and several other Northern tribes but he likely meant just those portions of Northern Europe that had been brought under Roman control.Although it’s a bit of a mystery why the North African Tertullian would know, he said the Faith had taken root in Britain by the end of the 2nd C. As we’ll see in a later episode, the Celtic church existed in England, Ireland, & Scotland, quite independent of Rome, long before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman missionary Augustine. In fact, that early Celtic church sent missionaries to Germany, France, & the Low Countries well before the Italian outreach. In the mid-8th C, the Venerable Bede reported that about the year 167 the British king Lucius asked the bishop of Rome to send missionaries. Then, at the Council of Arles in 314, British bishops from York, London & Colchester, were in attendance.This would be a good place to talk about the Expansion of the Faith into the East but that’s a huge, important, and all too often overlooked part of the History of the Church, so we’ll save it for later.  Suffice it for now – as many students of history know, the Roman Empire got stalled in the East, first by the Parthians, then later by their successors, the Sassanids.The Sassanids gladly applied the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that meant from the late 2nd thru 3rd C, as Christians were being persecuted in the Roman Empire, they were welcomed to the East by the Sassanids. The church sprang up and grew rapidly all over Mesopotamia & Persia in what today we know as Iran. Some of the greatest cultural achievements of the Faith during the 3rd C were in this Persian church. But when Constantine embraced Christianity and the Church moved into the position of political favor in the Roman west, you may guess what that meant for the Church in the regions controlled by the Sassanids. Still, this eastern church had developed its own unique culture, and instead of moving back west to join the church of the Byzantine-Roman world, persecution pushed it even further east, all the way to China.Let’s finish out this episode with a look at Justin Martyr who we began with a quote from.Justin was born in the ancient city of Shechem in the very center of Israel. But by the time he was born in AD 100, it was a Roman city called Flavia Neapolis = New Flavianberg. Raised by pagan parents, he sought life’s meaning in the major philosophies

This episode is titled, “Not Really an Apology.”Anyone who embarks on a study of church history and starts at the beginning will soon run in to a pile of church leaders known as the Church Fathers. They’re often divided into the Ante-Nicean and Post-Nicean Fathers; meaning the church leaders who lived ante-before the First great Ecumenical Church Council of Nicea in AD 315, and those who lived during & after it.; thus the prefix – post.The Fathers can further be broken up into 3 groups, based on the primary focus of their writings. Those 3 groups are the Apostolic Fathers, the Apologists and the Theologians.While there’s some overlap time-wise, we can say that generally the period of the Apostolic Fathers was from the end of the 1st to mid-2nd C. As we saw in a previous episode, the Apostolic Fathers weren’t Apostles; they were followers & students of the Apostles & had a close relationship with them.Then from the mid-2nd C thru the end of the 3rd is the time of the Apologists. They’re called this because their work focused on defending the Faith against attacks both from without & within.Following the Apologists were the Theologians who provided leadership of the Church from the beginning of the 4th thru the 6th C.  Their work hammered out precisely what it was Christians believed regarding some of the more complex aspects of the Faith.In the previous episode we considered the Apologist Justin Martyr who wrote 2 important defenses of the Faith and addressed them to 2 Roman Emperors, Antoninus Pious and Marcus Aurelius.Now we look at another important Apologist, Irenaeus.But before we dive into his story, let me be clear for those unfamiliar with the term ‘Apologist.’The modern English word “apology” means to say you’re sorry for having made an error. It’s an acceptance of blame and a way to restore good will. That’s not what the Apologists gave. They had nothing to be sorry for. The word comes from the Greek word Apologia – which was a formal defense of one’s position. It’s a legal word. An apologia is something an attorney would prepare going into court. It was an attempt to prove something by use of evidence and reason. That’s why today Apologetics is the term used for defending the Faith. The tradition of Apologetics goes all the way back to the earliest days of Church History when the Christian Faith was emerging into a hostile pagan world.The Apologists were those Early Church Fathers, usually pastors of local churches, who wrote up formal works to be given to Roman officials like the Emperor or a provincial governor, explaining why persecution was an inappropriate reaction to the followers of Jesus.One of the premier Apologists who was also one of the earliest Theologians, was Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, in France. His career was spent battling the dangerous threat of Gnosticism.Born in Asia Minor, probably the city of Smyrna about 135, he was influenced by the Apostolic Father & student of the Apostle John, Polycarp. Irenaeus was deeply affected by his mentor, saying he wrote down what he learned from him, not on paper but on his heart.After attending school in Rome, Irenaeus went out as a missionary to Southern Gaul. He served as an elder in a couple churches that witnessed the heavy persecution born by the believers there during the reign of Marcus Aurelius.It was during this time that the Montanist controversy broke. We talked about them in a previous episode. Here’s where we find out it was an issue many churches weighed in on. One faction thought the Montanists ought to be declared heretical and banned. Others found their theology aberrant but didn’t qualify as heresy. They thought the Montanists ought to be reined in, not kicked out.The churches of Southern Gaul were of this second persuasion and in AD 178 sent Irenaeus to Rome to voice their opinion. When Irenaeus returned to Lyon, he learned its Bishop had been martyred. He was selected to fill his place.From then till his death in 14 yrs later, Irenaeus stayed a busy man. He was a prolific writer and tireless pastor & missionary.Irenæus proved to be a great asset for the Church in the later 2nd C and provided a solid foundation for the Church of the next 2 centuries. While he struggles w/the native language of Gaul, he was a master of Greek. He was adept at using Greek culture, language and thought forms in the defense of the Faith and helped lay a philosophical & theological foundation later church leaders drew on.And don’t forget, Irenaeus’ connection back to Christ was close, though he lived toward the end of the 2nd C. His teacher was the long-lived Polycarp, who’d been the disciple of the aged John – direct disciple of Jesus!This helps us put his emphasis on apostolic succession in perspective. This became a key concept in his writing. Irenaeus didn’t argue for some kind of dynastic principle in Church leadership so much as the idea that the Faith itself; its doctrines, tenets, values & mission where drawn from the original Apostles, passed on to their followers, then passed on to the next generation, and so forth. Church leaders obtain authority only to the degree they were loyal to the foundation the Apostles laid. Their authority was derived directly from their adherence to what was already given, it did not originate with them or merely with the office they held.Okay è Personal Comment Alert: What follows is my personal commentary.Church leaders today would do well to remember this when they’re pressed to compromise with the World on moral & spiritual issues. The authority of pastors and church leaders comes from one place – God. It does not adhere to some office in the Church. A title means nothing, no matter how big the hat or fancy the label. God gives authority to fulfill HIS calling and mission for that person. When they step outside that role, they possess no real authority. The authority of the minister is derived and directly proportional to their loyalty to the Apostolic message & Mission.That’s what Irenaeus was saying in his writings. And while there was an extension of this principle into the realm of church leadership, Irenaeus didn’t advocate some kind of spiritual dynastic principle whereby Church leadership & hierarchy was bequeathed by one leader to the next.Irenæus was a fierce opponent of error & schism, and the most orthodox of the ante-Nicene fathers. It may be of interest to some listeners that Irenaeus, along with the Church Father, Papias and most of his contemporaries, were pre-millennarian in their eschatological views. Those views were later abandoned by the Church as too Jewish in origin. While laboring hard for the spread & defense of the Faith on Earth, Irenaeus was à “gazing up into heaven,” like the original disciples, anxiously waiting for the return of the Lord and the establishment of his kingdom.Irenæus was the first of the Church Fathers to make full use of the NT. While the Gnostics he spent much of his time refuting wanted to carve up the Bible, whittling it down to just a handful of texts, Irenaeus referred to all 4 Gospels and nearly all the epistles as Scripture.Though he had great zeal for essential doctrine, Irenæus was tolerant toward differences over non-essentials. He urged the bishop of Rome to lighten up in his demands about how & when people could celebrate the Resurrection.2 major works of Irenaeus have survived. Against Heresies & The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.Against Heresies was written about 185, while he was bishop of Lyon. It’s aimed at the error of Gnosticism we’ve already considered. Against Heresies has 5 parts.Book 1 is an historical sketch of various Gnostic sects alongside a statement of Christian faith.Book 2 is a philosophical critique of Gnosticism.Book 3 is a Scriptural critique of it, while …Book 4 answers Gnosticism from the words of Christ Himself.It wraps up with Book 5; a vindication of the resurrection against Gnostic arguments denying it.In a quote from early in the work, Irenaeus says, “Error is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself.”Irenaeus has been called “Father of Church Dogmatics” because he sought to formulate the principles of Christian theology and provide an exposition of the church’s beliefs. That was especially clear in his other writing, The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching.  There he laid down the premise that the Christian faith finds its revelation & authority in the Scriptures. He refers to both the Old & New Testaments to prove this and as I said earlier, quotes from all but 4 of the NT books.Irenaeus is an important figure for the development of Christian theology because in his battle with Gnosticism, he lays down the principle of recapitulation, that is, that Jesus Christ is the core & essence of all true theology. He’s both Creator & Redeemer. What was lost in Adam is regained in Christ. What he says about Jesus, as drawn from the Scriptures, would be used later by the Theologians when they had their discussion & debates over the nature of Christ.Besides these 2 works we know were authored by Irenaeus, there are several other fragments and some works attributed to him by people like Eusebius. We’ll skip reviewing all those except one that deserves mention. In the Epistle to Florinus, Irenaeus writes to a friend who’d at one time served with him in ministry. In fact, they’d both grown up in the Faith, side by side at the feet of Polycarp. Florinus became an elder at the Church in Rome, but was deposed when he embraced Gnosticism. Irenæus reminded him touchingly of their friendship & past. You can hear the ache in Irenaeus’ words that someone who’d been so close and so clear on the things of God, could throw it all aside for such silliness as the error of the Gnostics. Ire

This episode is titled, “Striving to Give an Answer”In his first epistle, the Apostle Peter urged Jesus’ followers to always be ready to give a defense, an apologia, of their faith to anyone who asked. That word meaning an articulate, reasoned position. It was used of the arguments lawyers carried into court to argue their case. Peter added that the Christian must share his/her defense of the Faith, not in a combative or argumentative tone, but with meekness & respect.If there was any Church Father who sought to embody that command, it was Origen of Alexandria.Origen was what some might term a “religious fanatic” who gave up his job, slept on the floor, ate no meat, drank no wine, fasted twice a week, owned no shoes, & according to one account castrated himself for the faith. He was also the most prolific scholar of his age, penning hundreds of manuscripts. He was a 1st rate philosopher, & profound student of Scripture.So outstanding in resisting all the forces that came against him, Origen was nick-named “Adamantius” = man of steel. If that sounds familiar, Adamantine is the metal that makes up Wolverine’s skeleton in the X-Men series. But no! Origen was not a 3rd C Wolverine. à Let’s not get carried away.A child prodigy, Origen was born near Alexandria in Egypt about AD 185. The oldest of 7 children, he grew up in a Christian home learning the Bible & the meaning of commitment. In 202 his father, Leonidas, was beheaded for the faith in one of those regular rounds of persecution at the hands of hostile Roman officials during the reign of Septimius Severus. The grief stricken 17 year old Origen wanted to join his father as a martyr but his mother prevented him from leaving the house by hiding his clothes.So; I guess he was willing to DIE in public but not go out naked in it. Sounds like your typical 17 yr old to me.Origen quickly realized he had more to offer than martyrdom & went to work to support his family. He started a grammar school, copied texts, & instructed new believers in the basics of the faith. While engaged in all this, he himself studied under the pagan philosopher Ammonius Saccas in order to better defend his faith against the arguments of hostile pagans.As persecution went on, Origen boldly visited the imprisoned, attended their trials, & comforted the condemned.  His fame spread & the number of his students increased rapidly. The Bishop of Alexandria at this time was Demetrius, with whom Origen had a hot & cold relationship. There were brief seasons of good will broken by longer periods of antagonism between the two. Origen was by far the sharper intellect & it seems Demetrius was jealous. He demanded Origen limit himself to teaching students issues of doctrine alone. He was not allowed to preach.Around AD 211-12, during the reign of the Caracalla, Origen visited Rome. The moral looseness he witnessed on the part of Church officials disturbed him. You see, Origen was a confirmed ascetic; committed to self-discipline & an austere lifestyle that shunned anything hinting of a weakening of moral virtue. So on his return to Alexandria he resumed his teaching with a zeal increased by his determination to not follow the example he saw in the capital.His school had by this time outgrown the strength of a single instructor & administrator. The students clamored for more instruction, & graduates wanted materials to help them study the Bible. Origen brought on others and increasingly devoted himself to the study of the Bible and producing high quality resources. He learned Hebrew so he could get at the text of the OT more efficiently. It was at this time, about 212, that Origen became friends with a wealthy man named Ambrose of Alexandria. Ambrose was a Gnostic whom Origen persuaded to leave his errant views and become a Christian.Their friendship continued for years, & in appreciation for Origen’s friendship & concern for his soul, Ambrose provided several secretaries to help transcribe Origen’s copious writings. A large number of Origen’s works were dedicated to this friend, Ambrose.In 214, Origen visited Arabia & the Holy Land. The following year, a popular uprising at Alexandria caused the Emperor Caracalla to allow his soldiers to loot the city. The schools were closed & all foreigners expelled. This meant Ambrose had to leave so Origen went with him. They took refuge in Caesarea on the coast of Israel. Though he wasn’t an ordained priest, the bishops of both Jerusalem & Caesarea asked Origen to carry on a temporary preaching ministry in the local churches.While this was in line with the practice of the churches in Israel, it was NOT allowed by the Church in Alexandria. When Origen returned there in 216, Bishop Demetrius was furious & tried to limit Origen’s on-going work.Of his activity over the next decade little is known. He likely engaged mostly in writing & the instruction of new believers.Origen understood the threat being posed by Gnosticism. He also knew when Gnosticism finally disappeared, another error would rise to replace it. The only way to deal with the sure coming waves of heretical challenge was to provide tools for believers to use to study & understand the Bible. To that end he produced the Hexapla, an early form of what we know today as a Parallel Bible. The Hexapla had the original Hebrew text of the OT, a Greek, transliteration & several other Grk translations. All arranged in 6 parallel columns. One of these Greek translations he found in a jar in the city of Jericho. This was a massive undertaking and required 28 years to complete. The Hexapla obviously became an important part of the development of the NT canon & helped shape scriptural translation. Unfortunately it was lost. It was so massive modern scholars doubt anyone ever copied it entirely. We know of its existence because portions of it exist, and it’s referenced in several comments by contemporary Christians.Origen might rightly be called the 1st Bible scholar who analyzed the Scriptures on 3 levels: the literal, the moral, and the allegorical. As Origen himself put it, “For just as man consists of body, soul, and spirit, so in the same way does Scripture.” In truth, Origen preferred the allegorical because it allowed for more spiritual interpretations. There were many passages he considered impossible to understand literally.Origen’s method of allegorical interpretation became the standard for Bible study of later church ages, and would end up leading people pretty far astray.Origen’s main work, was De Principiis = On First Principles. It was the first systematic exposition of Christian theology ever written. He created a distinctly Christian philosophy by synthesizing Greek techniques of analysis with Biblical texts. Add to these the 2 massive works of the Hexapla & De Principiis, his homilies & commentaries, and it’s clear how he kept 7 secretaries busy and caused the later church father Jerome to say in frustrated admiration, “Has anyone read everything Origen wrote?”While what we’ve looked at so far makes Origen out to be a pretty solid guy, he wasn’t without warts.  In fact, one of the later Church Councils will go so far as to label Origen a heretic.But hang on; as we’ll see, those councils weren’t always the most unbiased and righteous courts of discernment. Far from it!It was Origen’s interpretation of Scripture that got him into hot water. He advocated the idea that the real meaning of a text wasn’t its straight-forward, literal reading but that Scripture had an allegorical meaning & THAT was the primary purpose of the text. Finding the allegorical key was the main point, Origen and his followers, claimed.While there is certainly some deep allegory to some of Scripture, the vast majority of the Biblical text ought to be understood literally. But those who followed Origen took his idea of allegory too far and made allegory the main interpretive method for all of Scripture. This methodology of Bible study held sway for hundreds of years & ended up countering the very thing Origen had set out to do – make the Bible accessible to all believers. For in the allegorical method of interpretation, only those educated in the often esoteric symbols of the Allegoricalists can rightly interpret & understand the Word of God.Another thing that Origen did which had a negative effect on the Church was his fanatical dedication to self-denial. Origen was so anxious to present himself to God as holy he engaged in practices that were surely aberrant. It was this fastidious devotion to asceticism that encouraged the monastic movement of later times. He denied himself sleep, engaged in extreme fasting, & went barefoot.There’s one aspect of Origen’s asceticism that bears recounting because modern students of church history often hear only a partial story. A fuller report is warranted as it illustrates how more knowledge on a subject often sheds a very different light on the how & why of things the ancients did.So – Origen’s great zeal for holiness moved him when he was young & immature to castrate himself.Yes, you heard me correctly; he castrated – HIMSELF! è Ouch!!!!!!!His motive was to avoid any potential for scandal because of his instruction of women. Now this is interesting, because though Origen later developed an allegorical method of interpretation, when he was younger he took Matthew 19:12 pretty literally when it said; “There are those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”The early church historian Eusebius says Origen’s self-castration was “proof of an inexperienced and youthful heart but also of faith and self-control.”It seems Origen later thought better of his youthful act. In his Commentary on Matthew he condemned those who took 19:12 literally, and said such an action was an "outrage." Based on this, modern skeptics contend the report of Origen’s self-castration is false. But Origen goes on in his writings to speak of the physical problems resulting from castration in a way that

This week’s episode is titled “Hammering out the Details. ”That group of guys known as the Early Church Fathers for the most part were pastors. They were leaders of churches who had a pastoral concern for both the Faith & their people.The later 1st through 3rd Cs saw the Church expand around the Mediterranean basin, in a few places up into central Europe, across North Africa, across the Middle East and into Mesopotamia and the Persian East. While believers contended with periodic outbursts of persecution in Roman controlled territory, the great threat was that presented by aberrant sects that kept rising up aiming to hijack the Faith.It’s understandable why this was such a problem in these early centuries. Christian theology was still being hammered out. In fact, it was the threat posed by aberrant groups that forced church leaders to formalize precisely what it was Christians believed. Just as today, some new wind of doctrine blows thru the church and most Christians have little idea what’s wrong with it; they just sense something is. It doesn’t sound or feel right, but they couldn’t say precisely what it is. It takes some astute pastor, Bible student, or theologian to show HOW said doctrine is contrary to Scripture. Then everyone’s clued in and has an idea of why & how that aberration or heresy is off.Multiply that process by many years & lots more of those winds of doctrine, and you can see how a large & detailed body of Christian theology developed. Most times, church leaders turn to the Bible to compare the new idea to what’s already known to be God’s Word & Will. But sometimes what’s needed is some new words – or at least to make sure we know what the words we’re using when we explain something mean! And we need to make sure we all mean the same thing by those words. We see how important this is today when dealing with the cults. Two people can say they’re Christians, and both believe in & follow Jesus. But while one person’s “Jesus” is the eternal Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin Jewish teenager named Mary, the other person’s “Jesus” is really just a manifestation of the archangel Michael, or à the human son of a god named Elohim who used to be a man on another planet a long time ago who ascended into being a god with a heavenly harem by which he produces spirits looking for human bodies. Believe it or not, that is what a couple prominent pseudo-Christian cults believe today.My point is è we need to make sure we pour the same meaning into the words we use, especially when we’re talking theology, because what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.We’ll see how complex & what a major deal this all was when we get to the debates about the trinity & the nature of Jesus in the 4th & 5th Cs. For now, realize that even earlier, during the latter 1st thru 3rd Cs, it was usually pastors who did most of the theological work as they dealt with the challenge of goofy teachings about God & Jesus confronting the people they led.Let’s take a brief look at some of the major doctrinal challenges & groups that challenged the early church.We already considered the threat of Gnosticism. We spent a whole episode on that topic because it was a huge challenge that a few letters of the NT addressed.We considered the challenge Marcion presented, with his virulent anti-semitism & attempt to separate the God of the OT from the God of the New.We took a brief look at Montanus and his, what we might call, early Charismatic Movement. Ws saw that while there were indeed some aberrant elements in Monantism, they did not rise to the level of heresy the Early Church ended up labeling them with.A group we’ve not looked at yet was a kind of anti-Marcionist sect called the Ebionites. They emerged toward the end of the 1st Century & continued into the 4th.  Their beliefs smack of the error the Apostle Paul deals with in his Galatian Epistle.Ebionites said Jesus wasn’t the Eternal Son of God; he was just a successor to Moses whose mission was to enforce a strict legalism.  They claimed Jesus was just a Jew who kept the law perfectly. And because He did, at his baptism, the Spirit of God descended on him, empowering him to be a prophet. This sounds a lot like one of the many Gnostic sects.Ebionites were ascetics who avoided any & all forms of pleasure, assuming if it was pleasurable, it had to be wrong.  They practiced poverty, ultra forms of self-denial, & elaborate religious rituals. They abhorred the Gospel of Grace. Their name, “Ebionites” comes from the Hebrew word meaning “Poor Ones.” They likely took this name to honor their founder, Ebion, who spurned his given-name in favor of the title “Poor One.”What little we know about the Ebionites comes to us from the accounts of their opponents. The first Christian to write about them was Irenaeus who mentions them in his work, Against Heresies. Origen also mentions them, his account matching that of Irenaeus.They rejected the NT in favor of a scroll known as “The Gospel According to the Hebrews.” Keeping the Jewish flavor of their origins, they met in synagogues. As would be imagined, they considered the Apostle Paul with his emphasis on salvation by grace through faith to be a dangerous heretic. To Ebionites, Jesus wasn’t the Savior; Moses was because he gave the Law. Jesus was nothing but a Solomon-like figure who proved people COULD obey the law.When the Romans Titus laid siege to Jerusalem, the Ebionites join forces with the Gnostics. And a close reading of Paul’s letter to the Colossians gives a hint that it was this Gnostic-Ebionism that was troubling the church there.Another group that presented a challenge to the Early church were the Manichaeists. I’m not going to go into a lot of depth here. Suffice it to say Manichaeism was a rather bizarre cousin to Gnosticism. Like the Gnostics, they were dualist; meaning they considered the spiritual realm to be unalterably good while the material world was hopelessly corrupt.Their founder was the 3rd C mystic Mani. He proposed two opposing forces, light & darkness, forever locked in eternal combat. Salvation was defined as the victorious struggle of the Children of Light overcoming the darkness by a life of self-denial and celibacy. If some of this sounds a lot like the Zoroastrianism of Persia – Give yourself a gold star; you figured out where it came from!Mani was a Parthian who’d grown up in a home that was nominally Christian. He was loath to give up the ancient Zoroastrianism of his peers and homeland, so he decided to mix the two. And once he’d begun, he decided to go ahead and add a dash of Buddhism, some Hinduism, & a sprinkle of Judaism. Mani’s religion was an ancient version of Baha’i – you know, just snag whatever seems most appealing from a handful of major religions, toss it all in a bowl, mix thoroughly, cook at 350 for 20 minutes, let cool, and serve with a cup of Koolaid.But it’s not hard to understand WHY Manichaeism would appeal to so many people at that time. The Romans had brought dozens of different people under one political & economic system. Since religion was a crucial part of most people’s lives in that day, the diversity of faiths was a potential stress point that could lead to conflict. A religion that seemed to appeal to everyone because it contained a little bit of them all seemed a good move.Let’s turn now to take a look at another key Church Leader; Clement of Alexandria.Titus Flavius Clement was born in Athens to pagan parents. He became a Christian by studying philosophy. He settled in Alexandria in Egypt & attended a school there because he was impressed by the director’s interpretation of Scripture. When that director retired in AD 190, Clement succeeded him as head of the school, the same Origen would later take over.Now, I hope you find this as interesting as I did. This school, while run by Christians & dedicated to Christ, was anything BUT a narrow-minded academy aimed at spitting out mind-numbed followers. The school reflected the cultural mixture of Alexandria. It welcomed Christians, pagans, and Jews who wanted the best education the time could field. The Christian directors of the school believed that the Christian faith, given a fair hearing, would prevail over other ideas. So among others, the non-Christian philosopher, Ammonius Saccas taught there. Among his students were both Origen and Plotinus, founder of Neoplatonism.During his years as a teacher in Alexandria, Clement wrote most of his works. He followed the example of Philo, an Alexandrian Jewish scholar who’d used Greek philosophy to interpret the Old Testament. Clement adopted Philo’s allegorical method of interpreting Scripture, often quoting him at length.Now, I need to pause & define a term I’ve used a lot, not just in this episode but in several previous = Pagan. Today, in popular usage the word ‘pagan’ is fraught with a shipload of negative baggage. If you call someone a “pagan” it’s an insult; you’re saying they’re godless & immoral.That’s NOT what I mean here when I refer to someone as a pagan. I mean it as it’s come to be used by a growing number of alternative religious groups today. Pagans are those who’ve returned to a worldview that sees the forces of nature as worthy of worship. Witches & Wicca are pagan and draw their inspiration from the ancient world that believed in a plethora of gods & goddesses who controlled the forces of nature and exerted dominion over only certain regions. By pagan, I mean it in this technical sense; the worshippers of the Greek & Roman gods. People who believed the myths & legends of the Greco-Roman civilization.I pause to define “pagan” because Clement wrote specifically to them, seeking to reason with them about why they ought to put their faith in Christ. In his Exhortation to the Gentiles he used the same arguments employed by the Apologists, but with more sophistication.  By cherry-picking quotes, he showed an ascending revelation upward throug

This Episode is titled, “What Shall We Call Them?”The survival of the Christian church in the 2nd & 3rd Cs is surely a testimony to the favor of God. Any objective consideration of the challenges faced by the Christian community during this time has to wonder at the tenacity of the followers of Christ. This was a 200 yr period when they faced constant challenges from heretics & false teachers, as well as intense external pressure in the form of persecution.It was also a time in which Christian theology was still being developed & local churches improvised how they were led. Let’s take a closer look at how the leadership of the Church developed during this crucial time of formation.Little is given in the NT by way of a design for church government. What we find is a description of the character of those who serve as elders and deacons. But precisely what these offices were to do isn’t spelled out. We can only infer their duties from the word used to describe them. Since the term ‘elder’ is synonymous with ‘pastor’ in the NT, the elders were to lead, feed & protect the flock of God. Deacons, as their title suggests, performed a ministry of practical service in attending to the physical needs of the fellowship.In Acts, we see the Apostle Paul ensuring the churches he started had some form of pastoral leadership when he left. From his letters, we glean there were 2 classes of church leaders; itinerant & resident. One group, comprised of Apostles, Evangelists & Prophets moved from place to place, while Pastors & Deacons serviced a single congregation or tended a limited region were several smaller fellowships met.Ignatius of Antioch gives an important insight into the maturing of church leadership that took place at the beginning of the 2nd C. In order to make sure each congregation was well served by its leaders, Ignatius argued for a single, pastor-elder to lead the church, assisted closely by a group of fellow-elders & deacons.  Though the word ‘bishop’ simply means ‘overseer’ & is synonymous with the elder & pastor, the lead-elder was given the title of “bishop.” Ignatius urged churches to adopt this model of leadership.This form of church government facilitated communication within & between churches. With a bishop in each congregation, there was now one person to ensure communication with other congregations & their bishop. Having a bishop helped ensure a consistent policy in the distribution to the poor & produced a consistent voice in dealing with the challenge of false teachers.It was a few decades until Ignatius’ Bishop-Elders-Deacons form of church government was broadly established, but it eventually became the model most congregations adopted.  Yet even when churches embraced it, they implemented it differently. For instance, in Asia & Africa, each local congregation had its own bishop. In Western Europe, a bishop of a church in a large city often exercised oversight in the smaller churches of surrounding towns & villages by appointing their elders & pastors.By the late 2nd C, the undisputed leader in church affairs was the bishop. It was the challenge of Gnosticism that greatly encouraged this. Here’s why . . .The Gnostics claimed an unbroken succession of specially enlightened teachers all the way back to Jesus. They claimed Jesus entrusted a secret message to the Apostles, who in turn passed it on to others & of course, the Gnostics were the latest in that succession of enlightenment, who for the right price would impart that secret knowledge to the next generation of Gnostics leaders.In countering Gnosticism, the Church emphasized the public, rather than secret, character of the Gospel as openly taught by Jesus & His Apostles. They stressed that the tradition of the Apostles had not gone underground but that those leading the churches of the 2nd C could trace their connection to Jesus thru the Apostles by a visible line of communication & affirmation.  Crucial to this argument was the role of those churches that had been established by the original Apostles & their close associates, the Apostolic Fathers. In the 2nd C, the list of those who’d served as the lead-elders wasn’t something lost to the mists of time. People knew who’d been the pastors at Corinth & Ephesus, in Rome & Smyrna, and other keys churches.In the mid-2nd C, an historian named Hegesippus made a trip from Israel to Rome, interviewing bishops all along the route. Now—check this out because it’s super-important. Hegesippus discovered the bishops all shared the same message and viewed the Faith in the same way. They also went about their task of leading the church in the same general manner.  He wrote, “In every succession and city, what the law and the prophets and the Lord preached is faithfully followed.” Hegesippus even drew up lists of bishops, showing their succession in unbroken lines going back to the Apostles.Not long after Hegesippus, Irenaeus in Western Europe & Tertullian in North Africa filled out the succession picture for the bishops in their regions.The point is this – By the dawn of the 3rd C, each local congregation, in the larger cities at least, had a lead-elder who functioned as what today we’d call a senior pastor, but known in that time as a bishop. This bishop was assisted by a close group of fellow elders who oversaw the spiritual needs of the congregation, while their physical needs were met by a group of deacons.The development of this form of church government was in all likelihood encouraged by the model of the Jewish synagogue, as well as the nature of group dynamics. Whenever a group of people meet, it’s inevitable one will rise to take the lead. Even among leaders, one of them will tend to be invested with the role of taking the lead so the work of the group is more efficient. As one elder in a church was invested with this lead-role, the other elders & the church as a whole recognized the advantage of having one man who was called by God to lead them. When the threat of false teaching, such as Gnosticism, presented a challenge to the Faith, it further advanced the role of the bishop, who met with other bishops to develop a united response to the new threat.These gatherings of bishops to address issues of interest & concern to the Faith became a crucial part of the history of the Church. Known as Councils & Synods, they will see the major issues of the day brought forward for consideration and debate.I want to pause at this point & recognize that the emergence of the role of bishops in leading the Church is a point of major controversy; not that bishops did in fact become the de-facto leaders of the church, but what that development MEANS. Some claim the rule & role of bishops was the plan & will of God. Others see it as a tragic departure from what Christ intended for His followers. Still others would say that it wasn’t the development of this form of church government that was the problem; what became a problem was the quality & character of the men who became bishops.Without question, what commended the faith to outsiders during the 1st thru 2nd Cs was the quality of the lives of believers. As we’ve considered in previous episodes, the rumors circulated about what Christians believed & practiced in secret were absurd, just crazy talk. Those who actually knew Christians put little stock in the rumors because of the exemplary morality they lived by. Christians understood the power of the Holy Spirit, not so much as something that manifested itself in spiritual gifts but as a moral energy that produced the fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is precisely what the Apostle Paul told believers to look for as the evidence of the Spirit’s work.The Early Church Fathers continued this emphasis. So much so that members who continued in sin were first rebuked, then removed from fellowship.  But it wasn’t just Christians themselves who claimed a call to moral excellence. Outsiders gave testimony to the exemplary ethics and practice of Jesus’ people. In writing to the Emperor Trajan, Pliny, governor of a Roman province said that in his examination of Christians & their practices he was unable to find anything immoral; in all respects they were model citizens, except that they were part of an illegal sect. Justin Martyr says it was the moral attractiveness of the followers of Christ that moved him to consider their doctrine.But something changed at the dawn of the 3rd C. The morality of the Church began to dim, not universally, but in certain places. This brings us back to the role of Baptism in both the ministry of the Church & in the individual lives of believers.The Book of Acts presents water baptism in much the same way that some churches use an altar call today. It was a way for people coming to faith in Christ to make a public confession of their Faith. The Church used baptism as a way to give individuals a way to mark their inclusion in the Sacred Community = Communio Sanctorum. But over the next 200 yrs, that understanding of baptism morphed into a much more spiritually significant event. Baptism was thought to cancel all sins committed UP TO that moment. Following baptism, it was believed certain sins required special penance to be discharged, & if those sins were severe enough, they were beyond forgiveness.  There were 3 sins that were considered especially heinous; apostasy, murder, & sexual immorality. These sins might be forgivable by God, but the Church could not restore the guilty to fellowship.  Violators were excommunicated & denied access to Communion, which like Baptism had taken on more importance than as a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice. The elements of the Lord’s Supper were seen as spiritual food that nourished the grace by which believers maintained their salvation. So, to be cut off from Communion meant being in jeopardy of exclusion from those who attained heaven. Ignatius referred to the bread & wine as “

This episode of CS is provocatively titled “The Lapsed Dance.”In the 4th episode titled “Martyrs”, we examined the persecution Christians faced at the hands of the Roman authorities. We noted that persecution, while at times fierce, wasn’t one, long campaign of terror that lasted for a couple centuries. It tended to be spasmodic & regional, based on the whim of the current emperor, enforced in spotty fashion by governors who either agreed or disagreed with the official policy from far-away Rome. There were a couple seasons of Empire-wide persecution in the 3rd C that proved to be the most intense.Following Trajan’s more even-handed attempt to deal with the problem of the Christians in the early 2nd C, 2 Emperors followed a more rigorous campaign of persecution & pressed its application to the borders of the Empire. In the mid to late 3rd C, Decius & Diocletian considered Christianity a dangerous threat. Their reasons for opposing the Faith were several but looming large was the concern Christianity would weaken the Army, desperately needed to protect the borders being harassed by barbarians. Also, die-hard pagans claimed the old gods who’d overseen Rome’s rise to greatness were angry so many of their worshippers had turned to the new Faith. They warned disaster loomed; the only way to stay it was to appease the wrath of the gods by slaking it with Christian blood.To this end, some Emperors renewed an old practice: Emperor worship. While the details of this practice varied from time to time & place to place, the basic routine went like this . . .Once every so many years, the residents of a city had to appear in the public square, where they ascended a raised platform, picked up a pinch of incense, dropped it on some hot coals and announced, “Caesar is Lord.” The exact words of the oath varied depending on who was sitting on the throne. But the point was to honor the reigning Roman Emperor as a deity, minor as that deity might be in the pagan pantheon. While pagans who already recognized a plethora of gods had no problem adding one more to the list, Christians owned a fierce repulsion to confessing anyone other than Jesus Christ as Lord. They simply couldn’t do it. As the pagan left the dais after going through this little rite, he was handed a libelli – a certificate proving his loyalty. He kept that certificate as proof of loyalty, producing it whenever an authority asked him to show his compliance with Rome’s decree. In this manner, the Christians were marked out; they had no libelli.Now, as can be imagined, this challenge led to some memorable martyrdoms, especially in North Africa where Christianity flourished. It also led to one of the biggest controversies the Church had yet faced.Some Christians, under the threat of death, capitulated to the pressure, burned the incense & spoke fealty to Caesar. They took the libelli and went about their business. Once the Emperor Decius was gone and persecution eased, these capitulators repented their weakness and applied for readmission to the Church. The challenge for church leaders was = What was to be done with these “lapsed” members, as they were called?Some advocated their re-admission to the felloowship pending a review of their specific case by the local elders. Others, led by a church leader named Novatian, argued vehemently for their exclusion. For Novatian and his supporters, there was no room for any kind of negotiation. The lapsed were to be barred from fellowship. The controversy between the Novatianists and the majority of churches which by that time had made the church at Rome their unofficial headquarters became so great, it seemed there was only one way to solve it. The Novatianists were declared heretical by the majority and put outside the Communion of Saints.The Novatianist controversy flared up again following the last great persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. This time it went by the name of Donatism.During the Diocletian persecution, in order to avoid becoming martyrs, some Church leaders had not only submitted to Caesar worship, they’d surrendered sacred texts to imperial authorities, and, shamefully ratted out other believers. Such lapsed leaders were called “traditores” meaning, those who surrender. One of these traditores was Caecilian, also known as Cyprian. Cyprian hadn’t capitulated and worshipped Caesar, but he did go into hiding when the edict reached Carthage where he was bishop. His critics said he was no better than those who lapsed by this desertion of his post. When the persecution lifted, he wanted to returned to his position. The Church at Carthage was the lead church of all North Africa, a region with a large population of Christians. The Novatianist-leanings of the previous generation were most strong there and were renewed at this time, sparked by the re-installation of Cyprian. Those who refused to accept him, selected their own leader in an elder named Majorinus, whom they made a rival bishop to Cyprian. Majorinus died shortly after being consecrated. He was replaced by Donatus Magnus who advocated the same path of rejecting traditores from church leadership.The Donatist Controversy is important because what was at stake was the Christian concept of forgiveness and reconciliation. Was the act of saying “Caesar is Lord” while burning incense to an image of the Emperor an act of idolatry that marked one as apostate? And was such a coerced act something from which there was no repentance?Some said the betrayal by lapsed believers was a renouncing of Christ that condemned them to hell. Others said while some believers became martyrs and their faith was exemplary, those who gave in to the threat of death could not be held responsible and could be re-admitted to the fold, if they showed proper repentance. But such returned believers could not serve in any capacity of leadership in the church. Some held a view of reconciliation so far-reaching, they said even pastors who lapsed could be restored to their positions.What emerged during this debate was the importance of baptism.In the Books of Acts, baptism appears to have been used by the Apostles as the means by which believers identified their faith in Christ and their participation in the Community of Faith. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter called for new converts to be baptized immediately. Philip led the Ethiopian eunuch in immediate baptism.  Baptism at the moment of conversion seems to be the NT pattern & the practice of the Apostolic Church.But at some point, church leaders began delaying baptism, calling for converts to have a time of learning before being officially welcomed into the church. The reason for this delay is uncertain, but may have come as a result of seeing that some supposed converts didn’t follow through on their commitment. They fell away after a short time. By delaying baptism and preceding it with a period of instruction, it gave the convert a time to prove the genuineness of their conversion.While conversion was a work of the Spirit in the human heart, baptism was seen as the way someone made a public profession of faith and ushered them into the Community of Christ. So baptism became a kind of definitive line in the sand. It was thought that if someone renounced Christ AFTER being baptized, they were an apostate to whom repentance was now impossible.And as might be suspected, different regions understood all this this differently. Some held that to go apostate meant that person had forfeited salvation and was destined for hell. Other’s held that a seeming-apostate was able to repent & return to grace, but their renouncing of the Lord meant their being forever excluded from fellowship. So, they could be saved, but were barred from attending church & taking Communion.Another position said if someone did repent of what had earlier appeared to be a renouncing of Christ, it was evidence they hadn’t really gone apostate because if they had they wouldn’t repent. Therefore, repentance and the demonstration of a desire to return to God’s grace were evidence of salvation and for that reason the repentant ought to be readmitted to fellowship.So à the timing of baptism became a major issue once persecution broke out in a threat of martyrdom.  Baptism was delayed even longer than it had been because of the line it was thought to have crossed.  If a Christian caved during persecution and took a libelli before they’d been baptized, returning to fellowship would be easier. But if he/she lapsed after baptism then returning was more difficult, especially among groups like the Novatians & Donatists.As we’ll see later, this issue of the timing of baptism extended beyond the time of Imperial persecutions. When the Church began to invest certain sins with greater moral weight and consequence, many delayed baptism lest they commit a major sin after baptism and so incur  greater judgment.For now, let’s return to the Donatist Controversy.  Donatus and his followers held the view that pastors and elders who’d lapsed during the Diocletian persecutions were forever barred from leading the Church. Maybe they could be restored to fellowship but being a leader in the Church was out of the question. The majority view was that lapsed leaders could indeed be restored. As you might imagine, the debate was fierce. Many towns were divided between Donatist and non-Donatist congregations. The Donatists were particularly strong in North Africa while the Church at Rome led the non-Donatists who prevailed in Europe.The Controversy raged for a hundred years & became one of the more contentious issues the Church had to deal with during the 3rd & 4th Cs.What made the Donatist Controversy such a particularly heated topic was the great admiration believers held for the martyrs who’d maintained their faith & confession of Christ even at the cost of their lives. The question was, how could they be held in such high regard when those who lapsed could be so easily restored to fellowship?  Were in fac

This episode of is titled, “How Close?”One of the things modern Christians want to know is how close their church is to the primitive church of the 1st & 2nd Cs. Congregations and entire movements claim their particular expression of the Faith is closest to the original. So, what were early church services like? Where did they meet and what did they do?Until the end of the 2nd C, Christians met for services in private homes, deserted buildings, caves, near graves of martyrs, & in catacombs. Catacombs were a common feature of many cities of the Empire. Besides their primary use as burial places, they were frequent hiding places for refugees, smugglers, and groups that wanted to meet away from the watchful eye of authorities. Rome’s catacombs were a massive subterranean tunnel system.Jesus’ Followers used these places to meet because during these first centuries they were mostly drawn from the poorer classes of society & couldn’t afford a unique place devoted solely to worship. Their meetings were often banned, requiring they meet in secret. Another reason they tended to meet in locations away from the busy streets was because of the prevalence of lewd graffiti, ubiquitous in Roman cities. Graffiti isn’t a recent phenomenon; it has a long & storied history. Much of the graffiti encountered in Rome’s streets was political cartoons & commentary. But it was also bawdy and offensive to the sensitive morality of many Christians. So they looked for places outside the city to meet where pornography wasn’t scrawled on nearby walls.One of the points made by the Church Fathers knowns as the Apologists, who answered the attacks of pagan critics was that Christians had neither temples nor altars because their religion was fundamentally spiritual and needed no place for ritual. Their critics jumped on this lack of religious place as evidence of the silliness of the Faith. After all, if God was worthy of worship, they reasoned, wouldn’t He require a building? Origin replied eloquently to this attack by saying Christians were living statues of the Holy Spirit – and that each human being was immensely more glorious than any temple made of mere stone. In a significant remark from Justin Martyr to a Roman governor, he wrote that “Christians assemble wherever it’s convenient, because their God is not like the gods of the heathen, enclosed in space, but is invisibly present everywhere.”The homes early Christian met in had to have been large enough to accommodate a congregation. Based on what we now know about Roman architecture, such a home had a dining hall providing the best place to assemble. In the center of the long wall an elevated chair was set where the leader of the service led the assembled. Near him was a simple table upon which the elements of the Lord’s Supper were set. If they met in catacombs, a similar arrangement was made.The Early Church Father Tertullian was one of the first to speak of “going to church;” using the word “church” for the place where a congregation met. Clement of Alexandria who lived about the same time, makes reference in his writings to how the word “church” meant both the people & the place they met.About AD 230, the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus granted the followers of Jesus the right to have a building in Rome dedicated exclusively to worship. What’s interesting about this is that the loudest hew & cry against the church using its own building came from the tavern-keepers. The church was going to be located in a place rife with taverns and it meant some of them would have to be relocated to build the church. They also didn’t like the moral influence a church would bring.This Imperial permission to build a church greatly encouraged other cities around the Empire to allow the fast-growing Christian sect to build more facilities dedicated exclusively to holding services. The persecutions of Decius & Diocletian at the end of the 3rd  & beginning of the 4th C put a hold on such construction, and saw many of the buildings that had been built either torn down or converted to pagan use. Diocletian began his persecution in 303 by tearing down the huge church in his capital at Nicomedia. Yet by the beginning of the 4th C, Rome had some 40 churches!While we know the building of churches took place in the last half of the 3rd C, we have little idea of what they looked like. That changes with the acceptance of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine. It’s reasonable to assume the earlier churches were in some way similar to the basilicas Constantine built for both civil & religious use.They were rectangular with a proportion of 3 by 4. A semi-circular niche lay at the narrow end opposite the main door. The niche was the place where the elevated seat was set for the lead pastor, AKA the bishop. Ranging down the aisles of the main hall was a colonnade where people gathered in smaller groups, or if the central floor of the nave was full, they could spill into during the service.Christians met to hold their weekly service on Sunday, which they called “The Lord’s Day” because it’s the day of the week Jesus rose. The first Christians were Jews, who zealously observed the Sabbath on Saturday, but also gathered on Sunday, the first day of the week, so a work-day, early in the morning before work began. As the Church grew in the Gentile world, the church gathered only on Sunday. This is confirmed by ample evidence in the writings of Ignatius, Justin Martyr & the Didache.Those first Gentile Believers didn’t celebrate Sunday as a kind of Christian Sabbath, ceasing from work as they did later. That would have been impossible for the slaves of heathen masters who made up a large proportion of the Church in the early decades. It wasn’t until the time of Constantine that engaging in labor on The Lord’s Day was frowned on.  What also was put under the ban was theatrical entertainments. Greek & Roman theaters were more often than not, places of grotesque lewdness, not fitting for the moral sensitivity of believers.In light of the often contentious debates marking modern believers, it’s instructive that the Church Fathers never saw the Christian observance of Sunday as a continuation of the Jewish Sabbath. Sunday wasn’t regarded as a Christian version of obeying the 4th Commandment’s call to “Keep the Sabbath Day.” The Fathers DO however recognize as implicit in the teaching of Scripture the call to regular worship, and that meant specifying a day each week for gathering to worship. Ignatius, who we’ve already seen as one of the most important of the Church Fathers, specifically contrasts the Jewish Sabbath with the Christian Sunday – saying that the prior is replaced by the later. But he makes pains to point out that making Sunday the Lord’s Day is not a fulfillment of the 4th Commandment. Rather, Ignatius sees the 4th Commandment as fulfilled in the perpetual rest believers have in the death & resurrection of ChristThese weren’t the only days of the week Christians practiced specific actions as evidence of their faith. While Sunday celebrated the resurrection, Wednesdays & Fridays commemorated Jesus’ suffering & death. This was memorialized by partial fasts, till 3 PM.When Christians gathered on Sunday, there were certain things they did that constituted a service. This order of service evolved over time but became a fairly uniform practice by the 4th C throughout the churches. In the earliest years, a portion of the OT Scripture was read and someone with skill at public speaking would explain & apply the passage. Several short such passages & homilies could be given, depending on how may skilled speakers there were. It didn’t take long before one of the elders was recognized as the God-ordained teacher & leader of the congregation and was designated as their pastor-bishop.Soon the documents of the NT & writings of the Apostolic Fathers were also read & studied.With the emergence of the bishop as the leader of a local church, the sermon became one of the primary elements in the service. We have the record of an ancient sermon delivered by an anonymous pastor around AD 140. It’s not very good, but the way he closes the message is interesting for the simple reason that it doesn’t sound all that different from what tens of thousands of pastors say in their churches every week to this day! It ends thus …“To the only God invisible, the Father of Truth, who sent forth unto us the Savior & Prince of immortality, through whom also He made manifest unto us the truth and the heavenly life, to Him be the glory forever & ever. Amen.”Prayer was a major part of church services. Since many of the letters of the Apostolic Fathers include their prayers, we get a sense of what prayers were like in the churches of this time. What’s remarkable about them is how filled with Scripture they are. Their prayers were based on the revelation of God in the Bible and are appeals to His promises. They prayed for the suffering, the needy, travelers, prisoners; they pleaded with God to save the lost, confessed their sins, and asked for the preservation of their unity. Also notable is the emphasis on praying for the Emperor, for governors and all those in authority in the civil realm. These prayers weren’t anathemas, that is - calls for divine displeasure to fall in fiery bolts on pagan heads. They were prayers for blessing, peace, wisdom and courage.When they prayed, they stood, with hands stretched out toward heaven.The Church also sang – a lot! Their songbook was the Psalms. Besides the Psalter, they developed hymns; songs expressing Christian belief & theology. The man or woman who finds rote memorization difficult will often easily pick up a song & be able to sing several verses from memory. Singing was a way to both worship & learn theology.For a period of about 350 years, from the mid-2nd C to the close of the 5th, some churches divided their service into 2 parts. The first was open to all & was aimed at educating candidates for baptism. Ther

This week’s episode is titled, “Keeping a Record”The first 3 Cs of Church History are at times a difficult puzzle to sort out because no coherent historical narrative was being kept.Luke’s account in the Books of Acts recounts a time span of about 30 yrs & roughly narrates the spread of the Faith from Jerusalem to Rome. The next narrative doesn’t come till the writings of the Christian historian Eusebius in the 4th C.  What we have for a period of over 200 yrs are the writings of the Fathers whose letters give little more than a thumbnail sketch of what was happening. We have to infer & assume a lot by picking up what facts we can about what was happening. As we’ve seen, the work of the Church Fathers focused mainly on providing pastoral & apologetic support.  Gaining an historical framework for this period comes from merging secular accounts of history with the commentary of the Fathers. But with the work of Eusebius at the opening of the 4th C, the narrative becomes significantly clearer.Eusebius began compiling his magnum opus of Church History in the 290’s. Titled Ecclesiastical History, it’s an attempt to provide a narrative of the Communion of the Saints from the Apostles to his time.Eusebius was born & raised in Caesarea on the coast of Israel. He was a student of the Christian leader Pamphilas, who was himself a student of the great Apologist Origen. Eusebius became the bishop at Caesarea in 313. He played a major role in the Council of Nicaea in 325, which we’ll take a closer look at in a future episode.Eusebius is a key figure in the study of Church History because his Ecclesiastical History is the first work after Luke’s to attempt an historical narrative of the Faith. He’s also an important figure because of his close association with the Emperor Constantine.I want to quote the opening of Eusebius’ narrative because it gives us a sense of the monumental nature of his work.  He knew he was attempting to reconstruct a narrative of the Church from scant resources.In Chapter 1, which he titled, “The Plan of the Work” he writes –It is my purpose to write an account of the successions of the holy apostles, as well as of the times which have elapsed from the days of our Savior to our own; and to relate the many important events which are said to have occurred in the history of the Church; and to mention those who have governed and presided over the Church in the most prominent parishes, and those who in each generation have proclaimed the divine word either orally or in writing.It is my purpose also to give the names and number and times of those who through love of innovation have run into the greatest errors, and, proclaiming themselves discoverers of knowledge falsely so-called, have like fierce wolves unmercifully devastated the flock of Christ. …But at the outset I must crave for my work the indulgence of the wise, for I confess that it is beyond my power to produce a perfect and complete history, and since I am the first to enter upon the subject, I am attempting to traverse as it were a lonely and untrodden path. I pray that I may have God as my guide and the power of the Lord as my aid, since I am unable to find even the bare footsteps of those who have traveled the way before me, except in brief fragments, in which some in one way, others in another, have transmitted to us particular accounts of the times in which they lived. From afar they raise their voices like torches, and they cry out, as from some lofty and conspicuous watch-tower, admonishing us where to walk and how to direct the course of our work steadily and safely.Having gathered therefore from the matters mentioned here and there by them whatever we consider important for the present work, and having plucked like flowers from a meadow the appropriate passages from ancient writers, we shall endeavor to embody the whole in an historical narrative. …This work seems to me of especial importance because I know of no ecclesiastical writer who has devoted himself to this subject; and I hope that it will appear most useful to those who are fond of historical research.Eusebius was unaware of any previous attempt to provide an historical narrative of the development of the Faith from the late 1st C to his time in the early 4th, a period of a little over 200 yrs. From a modern perspective, Eusebius’ account might be considered suspect, relying as it does on tradition & at best fragmentary evidence. What must be remembered is the importance of that oral tradition and the accuracy of such transmission over long periods of time. Because the ancient world didn’t possess cheap and plentiful means of recording information, it was dependent on oral tradition & rote memorization.  With the advent of the printing press and more economic media, the priority of the oral tradition declined. Eusebius had both written and oral source material to draw from. His work can be considered dependable, while subject to question when it leaned toward the ancient penchant for using history as propaganda.As we return to the narrative timeline of Church history we need to pick up the story with the reign of the Diocletian who presided over the last & in many ways worst round of persecution under the Roman emperors.Though Christians remember Diocletian for that, he was in truth one of the most effective of the Roman Emperors. By the time he came to the throne, the Roman Empire was a sprawling & unwieldy beast of a realm to rule. The City of Rome was an old & decayed relic of its former glory. So Diocletian moved his headquarters eastward to Nicomedia in Asia Minor, modern Turkey.  Instead of trying to exert control over the entire empire himself & solely, Diocletian appointed Maximian as co-emperor to rule the western half of the Empire from Rome while he ruled the East.One of the persistent problems that led to so much unrest in the recent decades was the question of succession; who would rule after the current emperor? To forestall that turmoil, Diocletian appointed dual successors for both himself & Maximian.  Flavius Constantius became Maximian’s successor while Diocletian took on Galerius. This established what’s known as the Tetrarchy.While Diocletian had no warm & fuzzy feelings for the followers of Christ, it was really his successor Galerius that urged him to launch a campaign of persecution. Galerius was a military commander who thought Christians made poor soldiers. He knew their loyalty was supremely to their God and thought they made for unreliable troops. Galerius was also a committed pagan who believed in the Roman deities. He attributed any setback for the Army & any of the regular natural disasters that shook the realm, to their displeasure that so many of Rome’s subjects were turning to the new god on the block. So it was really at Galerius’ urging Diocletian approved the severe measures taken against Christians and their churches.  When Diocletian retired to his villa to raise cabbages & turned the eastern half of the Empire over to Galerius, persecution increased.Eventually, Constantius replaced Maximian in the West, just as Galerius had assumed the mantle in the East. And Diocletian’s tetrarchy began to unravel. Galerius decided he wanted to be sole ruler and abducted Constantius’ son, Constantine who’d been named successor to his father in the West. When Constantius fell ill, Galerius granted Constantine permission to visit him.Constantius died, & Constantine demanded Galerius recognize him as his co-emperor. No doubt Galerius would have launched a military campaign against Constantine’s bid for rule of the West, but Galerius himself was stricken with a deadly illness. On his deathbed, Galerius admitted his policy of persecution of Christians hadn’t worked and rescinded his policy of oppression.In the West, Constantine’s claim to his father’s throne was contested by Maximian’s son, Maxentius. The showdown between them is known as the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Maxentius didn’t want Constantine marching his troops into Rome so he tore down the Milvian Bridge after marching his troops across it to meet Constantine. Just in case the battle went against Maxentius, he had a temporary bridge built of a string of boats across the river.At this point, the story gets confused because there’s been so many who’ve written about what happened and the reports are varied. On the day before the battle, Constantine prayed, most likely to the sun-god. As he did, he looked toward the sun & saw a cross. Then, either he saw the words or heard them spoken, “By this sign, Conquer.” That night while he slept, Jesus appeared to him in a dream, telling him to have his soldiers place a Christian symbol on their shields. The next morning, chalk was quickly passed round & the soldiers put what’s called the Chiron on their shields. Chi & Rho are the first 2 letters of the Greek word Christos, Christ. In English it looks like a P on top of an X.When the 2 forces met, Constantine’s veterans bested Maxentius’ less experienced troops, who retreated to their makeshift bridge. While crossing, Maxentius fell into the water & drowned. Constantine then marched victoriously into Rome.A year later, he and his new co-emperor Licinius issued what’s known as the Edict of Milan, which decreed an end to all religious persecution, not just of Christians, but all faiths. For Constantine, Jesus was now his divine patron & the cross, an emblem of shame & derision for generations, became instead—a kind of charm. Instead of being a symbol of Rome’s brutality in executing its enemies, the cross became a symbol of Imperial power.Bishops began to be called priests as they gained parity with their peers in pagan temples. These Christian priests were shown special favors by Constantine. It didn’t take long for the pagan priests to realize which way the winds of political favor were blowing. Many converted.Now à there’s been much debate over the legitimacy of Constantine’s conversion. Was he genuinely

This week’s episode is titled, “Contra Munda”In our last episode we noted how the Emperor Constantine hoped Christianity would be a unifying influence in the far-flung & troubled Roman Empire. But as soon as he & his co-emperor Licinius passed the Edict of Milan granting religious tolerance to all the Empire’s subject, the doctrinal & theological debates that had been in place for years began to surface.When the Church was being hammered by persecution prior to Constantine, Christians had a more imminent threat to deal with. But now that persecution was lifted, secondary issues moved to the foreground.As we saw at the conclusion of the last episode, the Donatists of North Africa asked the Emperor to mediate their dispute with their non-Donatist adversaries. At the Council at Arles, the Donatists lost the debate over whether or not lapsed church leaders could be reinstalled. When they refused to capitulate, Constantine sent troops to Carthage, the lead church in N Africa, to enforce his will. For the first time, the power of the State was used to enforce Church policy on other Christians.An interesting aside from the Council of Arles was the presence of 3 bishops from Britain. This gives us an idea how far the Gospel had penetrated by the beginning of the 4th C.But the Donatist Controversy wasn’t the only or near the largest debate that would engulf the Church at that time. The biggest doctrinal challenge facing the Church was how to understand the person of Jesus Christ. A pastor of a church near Alexandria, Egypt named Arius became the champion for a position which said Jesus was human but not God.As we embark on this chapter in Church History, let me begin by saying it was in these early years, as church leaders wrestled with the identity of Christ and His relation to man & God, that the theological groundwork was laid for what we hold today as Orthodoxy. It took many years & several Councils before the Church Fathers worked out the right wording that captures the essence of what we now call orthodox doctrine. Getting there was no easy trip. The journey was fraught with great trouble, distress, and at times, bloodshed. It began with a debate over the nature of Christ; was He God, man, or both? If both, how are we to understand Him; did He have 2 natures or 1 hybrid nature that merged the 2? And if Jesus is God, then how do we describe God as one, yet being both Father & Son? Oh – and don’t forget the Holy Spirit? How are we going to describe all this without saying something about God that’s untrue?I warn you that as we carry all this into the 5th & 6th Cs, especially the discussions over how to understand the nature of Christ, we’re going to see some church leaders acting in a decidedly non-Christian manner. One of the Church Councils called to settle this matter ended up in a bloody riot! So hang on because we have some fun stuff ahead.For now, realize what we’re looking at in this era of our review is a big deal and will frame the course of Church life over the next nearly 300 years.How do I explain the debate as it emerged in the challenge Arius presented?Well, because of their pagan background, many people didn’t believe God experienced emotions as humans experience them. Yet it’s clear from the Gospels Jesus did experience such emotions. Therefore, logic seemed to dictate Jesus could not have been divine, because if He was, then God experienced human emotions. Arius’ solution was that Jesus was God’s first & greatest creation. Denying that Jesus was eternal, he said, “Once, the Son did not exist.” Arius wanted to get his ideas into the public mind quickly so he set his doctrine to catchy little tunes & soon, many were singing his songs.Arius’ position was popular among the common people who found the Christian doctrines of the Incarnation & the Trinity difficult. How could there be 1 God eternally manifest as 3 persons? Arius’ description of Jesus as a kind of divine hero beneath the 1 God fit more easily into their pagan background so they adopted his theology. While Arius’ teaching spread rapidly among his pagan neighbors, those with a keener awareness of the Bible opposed his aberrant views. They composed their own chorus that today is known as the Gloria Patri – “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, so Arius’ spiritual overseer, led the opposition to Arius and called together a group of Church leaders in 320. They reviewed Arius’ theology and declared it heretical.  When Arius refused to back down, they excommunicated him. Arius then went to the Empire’s Eastern capital at Nicomedia & asked for the support of his friend, the bishop of the church there, a guy named Eusebius.  Not the church historian Eusebius who lived at the same time.The 2 most influential churches of the East were set in opposition to each other, Nicomedia, the political headquarters & Alexandria, the intellectual center. Because Arius had Eusebius’ backing he felt emboldened to return to Alexandria. When he did, there was rioting in the streets. But then, if you know anything about ancient Alexandria, rioting was a favored past-time. They rioted like we go to a ball game; it was public sport.As the Arian Controversy spread, Emperor Constantine realized if he didn’t take action, instead of the Church providing much needed unity for the Empire, it would become one of the major sources of turmoil & unrest. In 325 he called Church leaders far & wide to attend a special council at the city of Nicea in modern Turkey, at his expense. Some 300 bishops managed to make it, enough to make the Council of Nicea a remarkable representation of the whole church.  Many of those who attended bore the scars & marks of the Diocletian persecution. When they met, they found a throne set for the Emperor in the midst of the hall. He sat arrayed in richly jeweled robes befitting more an Eastern monarch than an Emperor of Rome.Constantine assumed the Arian Controversy was merely a sematic debate; a petty brueha over words & that a meeting of the minds of Christians leaders was all that was needed to settle the dispute. Yeah, let’s just get every together in one place and talk it out man to man, face to face. Surely they’ll reach a compromise, right?  à So, he commenced the council with a little pep talk about the importance of their task, then turned it over to them. The depth of his naivete was quickly revealed.The account of the finding of the Council reveals that while the doctrinal issue raised by Arius was quickly resolved, it was how Arius was handled by Bishop Alexander that became the main point of debate.Arianism was declared heretical. The Council affirmed both the deity & humanity of Jesus as the Son of God. Constantine urged his friend, Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the famous historian, to put forward his creed, his statement of faith as something the entire council could endorse as their united statement. But the Council didn’t find Eusebius sufficiently clear on his belief in the deity of Jesus and went instead with a creed offered by the Bishop of the Spanish city of Cordova, a man named Hosius, another favorite of the Emperor’s. Still, the Council dithered, & Constantine, with an empire to run, grew impatient & pressed the bishops to endorse what today we know as the Nicean Creed, the accepted standard of Roman & Eastern Churches.I quote the Nicean Creed in full …We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, …Then comes the lines the Council wrote to specifically deal with the Arian error –True God of True God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father (remember that phrase; it’ll be important later) by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in only one holy, universal and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.Only 2 of the 300 bishops present refused to sign the Creed. Along with Arius, they were exiled. Constantine assumed the Arian Controversy had been dealt with, so the Church would settle down and help him unite the realm. To mark the dawn of a new & glorious day of Church & State cooperation, Constantine held a huge banquet before the bishops headed home.What a sight, these men bearing the scars of the previous emperor’s persecution, now the emperor’s celebrated guests, eating at his sumptuous table, reclining on his own couch! Guarded by his bodyguard. One man, missing an eye put out by Diocletian, was given special honor; Constantine even kissed the eyeless cheek!But in the years that followed, some of those bishops were banished from their posts when they took umbrage at this or that imperial decision. A hierarchy grew up around Constantine, self-appointed advisors to the Emperor on the state of the Church. If they didn’t like a certain fellow, they accused him of some offense, and the newly anointed enemy was exiled with his replacement being someone more amenable to the accuser. And just as often as a bishop ran afoul of Imp

This week’s episode is “The Daggers Come Out.”The Council of Nicaea dealt with more than just the Arian controversy over how to understand the nature of Christ. The 300 bishops who gathered in Nicaea also issued a score of rulings on issues of church life that had been subjects of discussion for years. Chief among these was setting the date for the annual celebration of the resurrection of Christ. They also set various rules for organizing the Church & the ministry of deacons and priests.As the Church grew with more congregations being formed, the need for some organization became apparent. So for administrative purposes, the church-world was divided into provinces with centers at Rome in the West & in the East, four headquarters; Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem & Constantinople. It may seem odd to us today that only 1 church was the Western center while the East had 4. Why so many? The answer is that it was in the E the Church had its greatest extent & growth.The bishops at these 5 churches were given oversight of their surrounding regions. This stoked a major rivalry between Alexandria & Antioch, the Empire’s 2nd & 3rd largest cities after Rome. These 2 cities vied with each other for leadership of the entire East. That rivalry became more complex when the church at Constantinople, the new eastern capital of the Empire, was added to the mix. The contest between them at first took place mostly in the realm of theological debates but later became sinister when ecclesiastical position equaled power and wealth.But, the amazing unanimity of the bishops at the Council of Nicaea seemed to presage the dawn of an era of peace and tranquility for the Church and Empire. It was not to be. While the bishops agreed on the word “homo-ousias” to describe Jesus being one substance with the Father, many bishops, possibly even most, left Nicaea feeling the Emperor Constantine's pressure coerced them into taking a position they weren’t happy with. After Nicea, many of them regretted knuckling under & grew resentful of his pressure to settle the issue.I don't want to get too technical here, but that's precisely what this all was; a highly technical issue of the parsing of words, trying to find an accurate expression of their belief about the humanity and deity of Christ. It isn't that the bishops didn't believe Jesus was anything less than God. It's just that the word used in the Nicene Creed, ‘homo-ousias,’ didn't capture what they thought the truth of Jesus deity was. Many of the bishops were uncomfortable with that word because the Gnostics had used it to describe their beliefs about Jesus a few decades before.So not long after the Nicean Council, many of those who’d signed the Creed backed away from it. Several alternate creeds were offered, some close to the Nicene version and others at great distance from it. None of them repeated the word ‘homo-ousias.’It was in the East that the greatest theological turmoil ensued. After Constantine, several of the Emperors were decidedly hostile to the Nicene position. A few were openly friendly with the Arianism Nicaea was supposed to have buried.As we saw last time, though Alexandria was a lead church in the East, its Bishop Athanasius was the sole standard-bearer for the Nicene Creed in the East. Though Constantine had sponsored and endorsed Nicaea and enforced its terms by the use of civil authority, his desire to bring unity to the Empire and Church moved him to press bishops to re-install Arius and his followers; not as leaders, but simply as church members. When Athanasius and other Nicene-keeping bishops refused, Constantine punished them with banishment. Then, after a season, he changed his mind and allowed them to return. But when those same church leaders again proved too principled for Constantine's taste in some other ruling he wanted adopted, he’d banished them once again. Constantine’s successors followed his lead.For reasons relating more to politics than doctrinal concerns, the half-century after the Council of Nicaea, saw the Eastern church effectively taken over by Arians. The Pro-Arian Bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius (not the famous church historian) was allowed to return to his post after a 2-year exile. He immediately set about to undo Nicea. He persuaded Constantine to reverse Arius’ exile and when the heretic appeared before the Emperor, he confessed a statement of faith that appeared to line up with the orthodoxy of Nicaea, but was in fact only a clever piece of verbal gymnastics that fooled the Emperor. Athanasius wasn't fooled and refused to affirm Arius as a member in good standing. So Eusebius and his supporters plotted to get rid of him. A council of Eastern bishops was called in 335 at Tyre as they were on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher Constantine had just had built. At Tyre, the bishops condemned Athanasius as guilty of conduct unbecoming a Bishop. Which is tragically comical, because Athanasius was about as pious as one could get. What Eusebius and his cronies meant was that a bishop ought to agree with them, “because well, just because. Stop being contentious or we’ll charge you with conduct unbecoming a bishop!” Athanasius recognized the ambush and went to the Emperor to plead his case. Eusebius followed and warned Constantine he'd heard Athanasius had threatened to call a strike of the Alexandrian dock-workers who loaded grain into the barges that fed both Constantinople and Rome. Without Egypt's harvest, the cities would go hungry & vicious riots would ensue. Eusebius's charge was ridiculous but he knew the Emperor couldn’t risk it being true. Constantine was forced to banish Athanasius to Trier (TREE-yer) in Germania.If you’re a subscriber to CS, you know we sometimes breeze over years, even decades of church history with only a brief summary.  Other times we slow down & go in depth. The reason for this is because there are moments, seasons, even eras when events occur, trends develop, movements are birthed that have a major impact on the course of following years. We’ve slowed down to focus on the post-Nicaean years because they’re illustrative of how ruinous the infiltration of political power has been to the Church. Only 20 years passed after Constantine’s conversion and the Edict of Milan, and already church leaders are using their authority, not as spiritual guides to bless those God entrusted to their charge but to accumulate more power & influence in the political & civil realm. A man like Athanasius, whose sole concern was to glorify God & faithfully discharge his role as a pastor, proved no match for a conniving political operator like Eusebius who used his office as Bishop to bend the Emperor’s ear & secure civil authority to enforce his will. While the once-persecuted Church rejoiced that the Emperor was finally one of them, they couldn’t foresee that his merging of church and state would bring about a whole new set of problems that would turn their leaders into power-hungry competitors.  While many bishops resisted the lure of political power & stayed true to their spiritual task, many others were seduced and plunged into the great game of ecclesiastical politics. The machinations of the contest between Eusebius & Athanasius would likely not have occurred during the persecutions of the previous decades. But when civil authority was lent church leaders, the doctrinal daggers came out and theology became a ruse behind which to plot how to gain political advantage.The historian Eusebius, not the villain who attacked Athanasius, but the one who wrote the first Church History chronicle, helped blur the lines between church and state. After charting the church’s course from the Apostles to Constantine in his book Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius presented Constantine as much more than just a ruler kindly disposed toward the Faith. Oh no – Eusebius sketched Constantine as much more than that. He was God's agent; ordained by God to provide leadership for both the Church & Empire.Eusebius said that just as the Church was a manifestation of the Kingdom of God on Earth, set to rule in spiritual affairs, so the Empire under Constantine was a manifestation of the Kingdom on Earth to rule in civil affairs. God would use both to accomplish his redemptive plan. And just as God ruled in Heaven, Constantine ruled on Earth. He’s not a god, as some of the earlier emperors had claimed, but he is, Eusebius reasoned, God's unique agent to administer His Kingdom on earth.These ideas of monarchy and kingship Eusebius promoted about the Emperor played well in the East where monarchs had long been esteemed as semi-divine. But Rome's historic aversion to kings, its allergic reaction to monarchy, meant Eusebius's promotion of Constantine didn't go over as well in the West. This is another factor that added to Constantine's tendency to stay in the East. Eusebius's promotion of Constantine as the leader of both Church & State set the scene for the emergence of one man to whom the Church would look for leadership. If not the Emperor, then another dynamic church leader; a bishop of the bishops.When Constantine died in 337, the empire was split between his 3 sons, who each lined up behind a pro- or anti-Nicean stance. Eventually one of them, the Pro-Arian Constantius, aserted sole authority. But immediately after Constantine’s death, many church leaders were allowed to return to their homes from exile, including Athanasius. His enemy, the pro-Arian Eusebius moved from Nicomedia to the capital at Constantinople where he convinced Constantius to once more banish him. Athanasius knew Eusebius was moved by sheer political will and went à to Rome to plead his case.In 340 Council of Western Bishops was convened that reversed Athanasius's excommunication and reaffirmed the doctrinal position of the Nicene Creed. This was a gauntlet hurled to the ground before the Eastern churches who were by now leaning decidedly toward Ari

This 17th episode is titled “What a Difference a Century Makes.”During the mid-4th Century, the history of the Church walked apace with the history of the Roman Empire. With the death of Constantine the Great, the rule of the Empire divided among his 3 sons, Constantine II, Constans, & Constantius. In the power-hungry maneuverings that followed, they did their upbringing in a Christian education little honor. They quickly removed any challenge by their father’s relatives, then set to work on one another. 3 years after their father’s death they went to war in a struggle for sole supremacy. Constantine II was slain by Constans, who was in turn murdered by a Gallic commander of the Imperial guard named Magnentius. After the defeat and suicide of Magnentius, Constantius became sole Emperor & reigned till his death in 361.Constantius departed from his father Constantine’s wise policy of religious toleration. Constantius was greatly influenced by the Arian bishop of Constantinople Eusebius who inspired him to use the authority of his office to enforce the Arian-brand of Christianity not only on the pagans of the Empire but also on those Christians who followed the Nicene Orthodoxy. Paganism was violently suppressed. Temples were pillaged and destroyed with the loot taken from them given either to the Church or Constantius’ supporters. As Christians had earlier been subject to arrest & execution, so now were pagans. Not unexpectedly, large numbers of former pagans came over to Christianity; their conversion feigned. A similar persecution was applied towards Nicaean Christians. They were punished with confiscation and banishment.Constantius meddled in most of the Church’s affairs, which during his reign was fraught with doctrinal controversy. He called a multitude of councils; in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum, & Asia. He fancied himself an accomplished theologian and enjoyed being called Bishop of bishops.Constantius justified his violent suppression of paganism by likening it to God’s command to Israel to wipe out the idol-worshipping Canaanites. But intelligent church leaders like Athanasius argued instead for toleration.  Athanasius wrote,Satan, because there is no truth in him, breaks in with ax and sword. But the Savior is gentle, and forces no one to whom He comes, but knocks on and speaks to the soul: ‘Open to me, my sister?’ If we open to Him He enters but if we will not, He departs. For the truth is not preached by sword and dungeon, by the might of an army, but by persuasion and exhortation. How can there be persuasion where the fear of the Emperor is uppermost? How exhortation, where the contradictory has to expect banishment and death?The ever-swinging pendulum of history foretells that the forced-upon faith of Constantius will provoke a pagan reaction. That reaction came immediately after Constantius during the reign of his cousin, Julian the Apostate. Julian had only avoided the earlier purge of his family because he was too young to pose a threat. But the young grow up.  Julian received a Christian education and was trained for a position in church leadership. But he harbored and nurtured a secret hatred for the religion of the court, a religion under which his family was all but exterminated. He studied the banned texts of Eastern mystics & Greek philosophers; all the more thrilling because they were forbidden. Julian became so immersed in paganism, he was made the leader of a secret order devoted to keeping the ancient religion alive.Despite his hostility toward Christianity, Julian recognized the Faith was too deeply entrenched in the Empire to turn back the sundial to a time when Christians were persona non grata. He decided instead to simply pry loose the influence they’d established in the civil realm. He appointed non-Christians to important posts & reclaimed some of the old pagan temples that had been turned into churches back to their original use.Julian enacted a policy of religious tolerance. Everyone was free to practice whatever faith they wanted. Make no mistake, Julian wanted to eliminate Christianity. He felt the best way to accomplish that, wasn’t by attacking it outright. After all, 200 years of persecution had already shown that wasn’t effective. Rather, Julian figured all the various sects of Christianity would end up going to war with one another and the movement would die the death of a thousand cuts, all self-inflicted. His plan didn’t work out, of course, but it was an astute observation of how factious the followers of Christ can be.When Julian was killed in 363 in an ill-advised war against the Sassanids, the pagan revival he’d hoped for fizzled. The reasons for its demise were many. Because Paganism is an amalgam of various often contradictory beliefs and worldviews it lacked the cohesion needed to stare down Christianity. And compared to the virtuous morality and ethical priorities of Christianity, paganism paled.Julian’s hoped-for elimination of Christianity by allowing its various sects to operate side by side never materialized. On the contrary, major advances were made toward a mutual understanding of the doctrinal debates that divided them. The old Athanasius was still around and as an elder statesman for the Church he’d mellowed, making him a rallying point for different groups. He called a gathering of church leaders in Alexandria in 362, right in the middle of Julian’s reign, to recognize the Creed of Nicea as the Church’s official creedal statement. His resolution passed.But trouble was brewing in the important city of Antioch. While the Western churches under the leadership of the Bishop of Rome remained steadfast in their loyalty to the Nicean Creed, the Eastern Empire leaned toward Arianism. Antioch in Syria was a key Eastern city split between adherents of Nicea & Arianism. The official church, that is, the one recognized by the Emperor in Constantinople had an Arian bishop. The Nicean Christians were led by Bishop Paulinus in a separate fellowship. But in 360, a new bishop rose to lead the Arian church at Antioch – and he was a devoted Nicean named Meletius! This occurred right at a time when more & more Eastern bishops were coming out in favor of the Nicene Creed. These Eastern bishops supported Meletius and the New Niceans of Antioch. We might think this would see a merger of the old-Niceans under Paulinus with the new, and à we’d assume wrongly. Rome & the Western church considered Paulinus the rightful bishop of Antioch & remained suspicious of Meletius & the new-Niceans. Efforts on their part to negotiate with & be accepted by the Western church were rebuffed. This served to increase the divide between East & West that had already been brewing for the last few decades.A new center of spiritual weight developed at this time in Cappadocia in central-eastern Asia Minor. It formed around the careers of 3 able church leaders, Basil the Great, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and their friend, Gregory of Nazianzus. Their work answered the lingering concerns that hovered around the words the Nicaean Council had chosen to describe Jesus as being of the same substance as the Father. These 3 Cappadocian Fathers were able to convince their Eastern brothers that the Nicean Creed was the best formulation they were likely to produce and to accept that Jesus was of the same substance as the Father, and so God, not a similar substance and so something other than or less than God, as the Arians held it. They pressed in on terms that made it clear there was only one God but 3 persons who individually are, and together comprise that one God; The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They said the 3 operated inseparably, none ever acting independently of the others. Every divine action begins from the Father, proceeds thru the Son, and is completed in the Holy Spirit.In 381 at the Council of Constantinople, the Eastern Church demonstrated its acceptance of the Cappadocian Fathers’ theology by affirming their adherence to the Nicean Creed. This effectively marked the end of Arianism within the Empire. And unlike the previous 3 ecumenical councils, the Council of Constantinople was not followed by years of bitter strife. What the council failed to do was resolve the split in the church at Antioch. The West continued to support the Old-Niceans while the East supported the New. It was clear to all tension was building between the old seat of Imperial power & the new capital; between Rome & Constantinople.  Which church & bishop would be the recognized leader of the whole? Antioch became the site where that contest was lived out thru their surrogates, Paulinus & Meletius.The Council of Constantinople attempted to deal with this contest by developing a system for how the churches would be led. The rulings of the Council, and all the church councils held during these years are called Canon Law, which established policy by which the Church would operate. One of the rulings of the Council of Constantinople established what was known as dioceses. A diocese was a group of provinces that became a region over which a bishop presided. The rule was that one diocese could not interfere in the workings of another. Each was to be autonomous.Though Jovian followed Julian as emperor in 363 his reign was short. He followed a policy of religious toleration, as did Valentinian I who succeeded him. Valentinian recognized the Empire was too vast for one man to rule & appointed his younger brother Valens to rule the East. Valens was less tolerant than his brother & attacked both paganism & the Nicean Christians. But Valens was the last Arian to rule in either East or West. All subsequent emperors were Orthodox; that is, they followed the Nicean Creed.When Valentinian died in 375, rule of the Western Empire fell to his son Gratian. When Valens died, Gratian chose an experienced soldier named Theodosius to rule the East.Gratian & Theodosius presided over the final demise of paganism. Both men strongly supported the Ortho

This week’s episode is titled “Hermits.”A few episodes back when I introduced Athanasius, I mentioned the religious hermits he visited in the wilderness near Alexandria in Egypt, bringing them food. As a young man, Athanasius honored these men who'd forsaken the ease of city life to pursue an undistracted but difficult life of devotion to God.Who were these hermits, and what moved them to such a radical departure from the lifestyle modeled by Jesus and the Apostles?While the theology of monks & monasteries evolved over many generations, its earliest foundation rested on the example of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ who was something of an ascetic. His normal haunt was the Judean wilderness where it intersected the Jordan River. He wore a less than a fashion-conscious wardrobe and ate a strict organic diet grudgingly provided by the wilderness.The earliest hermits put great weight in Jesus's counsel to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions, giving it all to the poor, & following the Lord. They embraced the New Testament’s frequent idiom that the flesh is in a battle with the spirit & vice versa. They concluded flesh & spirit are irreconcilable. Hermits literally renounced the world by leaving the cultured life of the city to live in a primitive setting in the wilderness. This lifestyle of deprivation and discomfort was regarded as the truest route to unhindered communion with God by the hermits and a growing number of their admirers.The first time we see a written expression of this emerging mindset is in the Shepherd of Hermas about AD 140. This early Christian document defines a higher & lower route believers can take in their devotion to God. Faith, hope, & love are the lower route required of all Christians. But for those who aspire to closer intimacy with God, self-denial is required. This denial of the self took many forms with celibacy & renouncing marriage one of the more radical, yet popular.The practice of penance became common with believers moved to dramatic acts of charity and bravery in order to prove their devotion to God. When persecution was a frequent threat, Christians used penance as a way to compensate for moments of weakness & fear. And of course, the martyrs were luminous heroes even some pagans admired! But with the repeal of persecution, the Church needed new heroes & found them in the hermits who engaged in extreme acts of self-denial.The earliest monks were hermits; individuals who took refuge in the desert, hinting at where they got their start; in Egypt, where the desert is plentiful outside the fertile strip of land along the Nile. The word or hermit comes from the Greek word for desert.About AD 250, a 20-year-old named Anthony took Jesus’ command to the rich young ruler to sell his possessions & follow him -- literally. Anthony sold everything & went to live in an abandoned tomb. Legends quickly grew up about his battles with temptation that took visible form in attacks by demons, seductive women, & wild beasts. Anthony emerged from each battle with a greater sense of devotion to God that inspired others to follow his ascetic example. Soon, hundreds made their way to the wilderness to pursue a life of rigid self-denial. Anthony was Athanasius’ favorite. Since Anthony lived to be over a hundred, he was alive when the future bishop of Alexandria was taking supplies to the desert monks. Athanasius wrote a biography of Anthony, which became widely popular. This book, more than any other factor helped boost the esteem & appeal of the hermetic life.Monasticism grew apace with the new-found imperial favor under Constantine and his successors. It's not difficult understanding why the number of ascetics jumped & monasticism became popular at the same time the Church & State were buddying up. Being a Christian was no longer dangerous, so the sincerity of many new members declined. When people realized belonging to a church was a social & political plus, the sincerity factor dipped even further. Genuine believers noted the sagging quality of faith among so many of the church’s fair-weather friends & chose responded by embracing a more rigorous path. The models of that era were the monks; those standout Christian heroes who’d attained an honor similar to that given the martyrs of the previous era-and hey! I don't have to get my head chopped off. Cool.So the monks of this time weren't so much fleeing the world as they were protesting a worldly church.Part and parcel of the hermetic life was an isolated individualism that stands in contrast to the communal life modeled by Jesus and the Apostles and urged in the New Testament. You don’t have much of a Body of Christ when it’s just one guy in a cave. Hermits found refuge in the wilderness an easy way to avoid the temptations of the external world but what of the far more dangerous inner temptations of the soul = things like pride & envy?The temptation to pride is obvious. After all, it was easy for the desert ascetics who'd taken the supposed “higher path” to consider themselves better than others. But how could envy be a problem when they lived alone? Well, they lived alone but they had plenty of visitors. Pilgrims made their way out to meet them and catch a few moments with those considered living saints. As these pilgrims made the rounds of several hermits, they reported to each hermit the extreme acts of penance and piety of the others. Not wanting to be outdone in a show of devotion, hermits endeavored to outdo each other. They went on extreme fasts, ate bizarre foods, lived in trees, on tops of pillars, & refused to bathe. As their acts became more bizarre, their fame grew & soon thousands flocked to see them. One hermit named Simon Stylites was so put out by the crowds who came to see him, he erected a pillar he lived on the top of for 30 years. People sent up food via a rope & basket.As with any extreme, it didn't take long before a calmer and more reasoned way challenged the decidedly non-biblical ultra-individualism of the desert hermits. About AD 320, someone remembered Genesis 2:18 à People shouldn’t be alone. Hey, maybe these hermits we’ve made into living saints aren’t really hitting the mark after all.An ex-soldier named the Pachomius formed the first monastery. It was a place where Christians could pursue devotion to God in a communal setting. Instead of each monk deciding for himself how to live and what to do, drawing on his experience as a soldier, Pachomius set rules for the community. All members wore the same uniform, engaged in similar manual labor, and kept the same schedule.While Pachomius’ monastery was the first we know of for men, women already had their own version of communal life. This had been necessary since women were not allowed to be hermits. Their isolation would've made them a tempting target for criminals and brutes. Nonnus is the feminine form of the word monk so the women who pursued the communal life were called nuns; their cloistered commune was a convent.The monastic movement spread north out of Egypt into Syria, then West into Asia Minor which at that time was the most spiritually dynamic region of the Faith. Once monasteries took root in Asia Minor they spread rapidly across Europe.When Athanasius died in the Spring of 373, 3 bishops from Cappadocia in Asia Minor picked up and continued to carry the standard of loyalty to the Nicaean Creed. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa. These 3 greatly promoted the monastic movement. Basil was especially important as he authored the Rule of Discipline that framed monastic life for generations after and does to this day in the Eastern Orthodox Church.Throughout the 4th & 5th Centuries, monasticism gained popularity and infiltrated every level of society. The communal life of the monks re-infused the Church with a sense of purpose and a return to the piety that had marked the Church’s early years. Martyrdom was replaced by a whole-hearted devotion to God thru renouncing a career of worldly success in favor of one lived in the imitation of Christ. In order to obtain this ideal within the context of communal life, monks took vows of obedience, poverty, & chastity. These were attempts to limit the battle-line of temptation and sin by renouncing possessions, self-will, & the sexual urge. Monasteries helped put an end to the problems common to the earlier hermits: idleness & eccentricity. They became centers of social renewal & scholarship. By the 6th Century, most church leaders were monks.One of the most notable monks from this period was Jerome, who lived from about 340 to 420. He began as a hermit in the Syrian wilderness. Despite best intentions, Jerome was plagued by sexual temptation. The only relief he could find was when his mind was preoccupied by an overwhelming intellectual challenge. Someone suggested he learn Hebrew which proved to be an effective prescription against temptation. Once he’d mastered Hebrew, he traveled to Rome where he became the tutor of one of a leading bishops and met a couple brilliant women who under his training became as skilled as he in teaching the Bible.When Jerome fell out with some other monks at Rome, he moved to a monastery at Bethlehem where he spent the next 22 years translating the Old & New Testaments into Latin.At first Jerome's translation was criticized because he used the street-language of his day rather than the more refined classical Latin of antiquity. People considered his Bible vulgar but it didn't take long before opinions changed & the Latin Vulgate was widely and wildly popular. The Roman Catholic Church used the Latin Vulgate as their official Bible until recent time.The man who had the most significant impact on monastic life was Benedict of Nursia not far from of Rome. Benedict was educated in the capital but when he was exposed to the extreme asceticism of the hermits, cut short his schooling in favor of a solitary life in a cave 80 miles south. He spent 3 years studying

This episode is titled, “Jerome.”By his mid-30’s, Jerome was probably the greatest Christian scholar of his time. He’s one of the greatest figures in the history of Bible translation, spending 3 decades producing a Latin version that would be the standard for a thousand years. But Jerome was no bookish egghead. He longed for the hermetic life we considered in the previous episode & often exhibited a sour disposition that showered his opponents with biting sarcasm and brutal invective.His given name was Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius and was born in 345 to wealthy Christian parents either in Aquileia in NE Italy or across the Adriatic in Dalmatia.At about 15, Jerome and a friend went to Rome to study Rhetoric & Philosophy. He engaged with abandon many of the immoral escapades of his fellow students, then followed up these debaucheries with intense self-loathing. To appease his conscience, he visited the graves & tombs of the martyrs and saints in Rome’s extensive catacombs. Jerome later said the darkness & terror he found there seemed an appropriate warning for the hell he knew his soul was destined for.This tender conscience is interesting in light of his initial skepticism about Christianity. That skepticism began to thaw when he realized what he was experiencing was the conviction of the Holy Spirit. His mind could not hold out against his heart and he was eventually converted. At  19, he was baptized.He then moved to Trier in Gaul where he took up theological studies & began making copies of commentaries & doctrinal works for wealthy patrons.Jerome then returned to Aquileia, where he settled in to the church community and made many friends.Several of these accompanied him when he set out in 373 on a journey thru Thrace and Asia Minor to northern Syria. At Antioch, 2 of his companions died and he became seriously ill. During this illnesses, he had a vision that led him to lay aside his studies in the classics and devote himself to God. He plunged into a deep study of the Bible, under the guidance of a church leader at Antioch named Apollinaris. This Apollinaris was later labeled a heretic for his unorthodox views on Christ. He was one of several at this time trying to work out how to understand and express the nature of Jesus; was He God, Man or both? And if both, how are we to understand these two natures operating within the One, Jesus?  Apollinaris said Jesus had a human body & soul, but that his mind was divine. This view, creatively called Apollinarianism, was declared heretical at the Council of Constantinople in 381, though the church had pretty well dispensed with it as a viable view of Christ back in 362 at a Synod in Alexandria, presided over by our friend Athanasius.While in Antioch & as a fallout of his illness & the loss of his friends, Jerome was seized with a desire to live an ascetic life as a hermit. He retreated to the wilderness southwest of Antioch, already well-populated by fellow-hermits. Jerome spent his isolation in more study and writing. He began learning Hebrew under the tutelage of a converted Jew; and kept in correspondence with the Jewish Christians of Antioch. He obtained a copy of the Gospels in Hebrew, fragments of which are preserved in his notes. Jerome translated parts of this into Greek.Returning to Antioch in 379, he was ordained by Paulinus, whom you’ll remember was the bishop of the Nicaean congregation there. This is the Bishop & church supported by Rome when the Arian church in Antioch was taken over a new also-Nicaean Bishop named Meletius. Instead of the 2 churches merging because the cause of their division was now removed, they became the political frontlines in the battle for supremacy between Rome & Constantinople.Recognizing Jerome’s skill as a scholar, Bishop Paulinus rushed to ordain Jerome as a priest, but the monk would only accept it on the condition he’d never have to carry out priestly functions. Instead, Jerome plunged himself into his studies, especially in Scripture. He attended lectures, examined parchments, and interviewed teachers and theologians.He went to Constantinople to pursue a study of the Scriptures under Gregory of Nazianzus. He spent 2 years there, then was asked by Paulinus back in Antioch to accompany him to Rome so the whole issue over who the rightful bishop in Antioch was. Paulinus knew Jerome would make a mighty addition to his side. Indeed he did, and Pope Damasus I was so impressed with Jerome, he persuaded him to stay in Rome. For the next 3 years, Jerome became something of a celebrity at Rome. He took a prominent place in most of the pope’s councils. At one point his influence over the pope was so great he had the audacity to say, “Damasus is my mouth.”He began a revision of the Latin Bible based on the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. He also updated the Book of Psalms that prior to that time had been based on the Septuagint; a Greek translation of Hebrew.In Rome, he was surrounded by a circle of well-born and well-educated women, including some from the noblest patrician families. They were moved by Jerome’s asceticism & began to emulate his example of worldly forbearance. This did NOT endear him to the rather secular clergy in Rome who enjoyed the attention of such lovely, rich and available women. But Jerome’s messing with their fun didn’t end there. He offended their pleasure-loving ways with his sharp tongue and blunt criticism. As one historian puts it, “He detested most of the Romans and did not apologize for detesting them.” He mocked the clerics’ lack of charity, their ignorance & overweening vanity. The men of the time were inordinately fond of beards, so Jerome mused, “If there is any holiness in a beard, nobody is holier than a goat!”Soon after the death of his patron, Pope Damasus in December 384, Jerome was forced to leave Rome after an inquiry brought up allegations he’d had an improper relationship with a wealthy widow named Paula.This wasn’t the only charge against him. More serious was the death of one of the young women who’d sought to follow his ascetic lifestyle, due to poor health caused by the rigors he demanded she follow. Everyone could see how her health declined for the 4 months she followed Jerome’s lead. Most Romans were outraged for his causing the premature death of such a lively & lovely young woman, and at his insistence her mother ought not mourn her daughter’s death. When he criticized her grief as excessive, the Romans said he was heartless.So in August 385, he left Rome for good and returned to Antioch, accompanied by his brother and several friends, followed a little later by the widow Paula & her daughter. The pilgrims, joined by Bishop Paulinus of Antioch, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Galilee, then went to Egypt, home to the great heroes of the ascetic life.Late in the Summer of 388 he returned to Israel. A wealthy student of Jerome’s founded a monastery in Bethlehem for him to administer. This monastery included 3 cloisters for women and a hostel for pilgrims.It was there he spent his last 34 years.  He finished his greatest contribution, begun in 382 at Pope Damasus’s instruction: A translation of the Bible into Latin.The problem wasn’t that there wasn’t a Latin Bible; the problem was that there were so many! They varied widely in accuracy. Damasus had said, “If we’re to pin our faith to the Latin texts, it’s for our opponents to tell us which, for there are almost as many forms as there are copies. If, on the other hand, we are to glean the truth from a comparison of many, why not go back to the original Greek and correct the mistakes introduced by inaccurate translators, and the blundering alterations of confident but ignorant critics, and, further, all that has been inserted or changed by copyists more asleep than awake?”At first, Jerome worked from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. But then he established a precedent for later translators: the Old Testament would have to be translated from the original Hebrew. In his quest for accuracy, he learned Hebrew & consulted Jewish rabbis and scholars.One of the biggest differences he saw between the Septuagint and the original Hebrew was that the Jews did not include the books now known as the Apocrypha in their canon of Holy Scripture. Though he felt obligated to include them, Jerome made it clear while they might be considered “church-books” they were not inspired, canonical books.After 23 years, Jerome completed his translation, which Christians used for more than 1,000 years, and in 1546 the Council of Trent declared it the only authentic Latin text of the Scriptures.What marked this Bible as unique was Jerome’s use of the everyday, street Latin of the times, rather than the more archaic classical Latin of the scholars. Academics & clergy decried it as vulgar, but it became hugely popular. The Latin Vulgate, as it was called, became the main Bible of the Roman church for the next millennium.Jerome’s work was so widely revered that until the Reformation, scholars worked from the Vulgate. It would be another thousand years till translators worked directly from the Greek manuscripts of the NT. The Vulgate ensured that Latin, rather than Greek, would be the Western church’s language, resulting centuries later in a liturgy & Bible lay people couldn’t understand—precisely the opposite of Jerome’s original intention. It’s also why many scientific names & terms are drawn from Latin, rather than Greek which was the language of the scholars until the appearance of the Vulgate.The Latin Bible wasn’t the only thing Jerome worked on while in Bethlehem. He also produced several commentaries, a catalogue of Christian authors, and a response to the challenge of the Pelagians, an aberrant teaching we’ll take a look at in a future episode. To this period also belonged most of Jerome’s polemics, his denunciations of works and people Jerome deemed dangerous. He produced a tract on the threat of some of Origen’s erro

The title of this episode it “Golden Tongue”His preaching was so good, they called him the Golden-mouthed.John Chrysostom was raised by a widowed mother in the city of Antioch. During the mid-4th C, Antioch was a major city of the Eastern Roman Empire & a major center of Christian thought & life. Coming from a wealthy family, John’s young mother decided to remain a widow & devoted herself to her son’s education. She hired a tutor named Libanius, close friend of the Emperor Julian the Apostate. Libanius instilled in John a love of the Greek classics & a passion for rhetoric that laid the foundation for his later life.He began a career as a lawyer but when he heard the Gospel, became a believer & was baptized in 368. His zeal drove him to that time’s most regarded example of what it meant to follow Jesus – he became a monk. But the deprivations of the ascetic life ruined his health. In 380, he left his cave to rejoin life in his hometown of Antioch. Six years later the bishop there ordained John a priest and he began a remarkable preaching career.During this time, he penned On the Priesthood, a justification for his delay in entering the priesthood but also a mature look at the perils and possibilities of ministry. He wrote, “I do not know whether anyone has ever succeeded in not enjoying praise. And if he enjoys it, he naturally wants to receive it. And if he wants to receive it, he cannot help being pained and distraught at losing it.”It was in Antioch Chrysostom’s preaching began to be noticed, especially after what has been called the “Affair of the Statues.”In the Spring of 388, a rebellion erupted in Antioch over the announcement of increased taxes. By way of protest, statues of the emperor and his family were desecrated. Imperial officials responded by punishing city leaders, going so far as killing some. Archbishop Flavian rushed some 800 miles to the capital in Constantinople, to beg the emperor for clemency.In the bishop’s absence, John preached to the terrified city: “Improve yourselves now truly, not as when during one of the numerous earthquakes or in famine or drought or in similar visitations you leave off your sinning for 3 or 4 days and then begin the old life again.” When Flavian returned 8 wks later with the good news of the emperor’s pardon, John’s reputation soared.From then on, he was in demand as a preacher. He preached through many books of the Bible, though he had his favorites. “I like all the saints,” he said, “but St. Paul the most of all—that vessel of election, the trumpet of heaven.” In his sermons, he denounced abortion, prostitution, gluttony, the theater, and swearing. About the love of horseracing, he complained, “My sermons are applauded merely from custom, then everyone runs off to the races again and gives much more applause to the jockeys, showing indeed unrestrained passion for them! There they put their heads together with great attention, and say with mutual rivalry, ‘This horse did not run well, this one stumbled,’ and one holds to this jockey and another to that. No one thinks any more of my sermons, nor of the holy and awesome mysteries that are accomplished here.”His large bald-head, deeply set eyes, and sunken cheeks reminded people of Elisha the prophet. Though his sermons, lasting between 30 minutes & 2 hours, were well-attended, he sometimes became discouraged: “My work is like that of a man trying to clean a piece of ground into which a muddy stream constantly flows.”Preaching and teaching had always been central to a priest’s work, but under John, it took on new significance. His messages were markedly different from the allegorical mish-mash common at that time. John’s sermons were straight-forward, literal interpretations & applications of Scripture. Over 600 of his messages have come down to us so we get a feel for the power of his eloquence, which earned him the nick-name “Chrysostom = Golden-mouthed.” Though he was slight of build, the quality of his voice was remarkable. He could be heard clearly by large crowds.In early 398, John was seized by soldiers and transported to the capital, where he was forcibly consecrated as the bishop of Constantinople. His kidnapping was arranged by a government official who wanted to adorn the church in the capital with the best orator in Christianity. Rather than rebelling against the injustice, John accepted it as God’s providence.But rather than soften his words for his new & more prestigious audience, including many from the imperial household & court, John continued the same themes he’d preached in Antioch. He decried abuses of wealth and power. His own lifestyle became a scandal because he refused the decadence the wealthy & influential were given over to. He instead lived an ascetic life, used his considerable household budget to care for the poor, and built hospitals.He continued preaching against the great public sins. In a sermon against the theater, he said, “Long after the theater is closed and everyone is gone away, those images (and here he meant the nudity of the actors & actresses] still float before your soul, their words, their conduct, their glances, their walk, their positions, their excitation, their unchaste limbs.… And there within you sin kindles the Babylonian furnace in which the peace of your home, the purity of your heart, the happiness of your marriage will be burnt up!”Assisting John in this public challenge to Imperial excess was a popular & wealthy woman named Olympias. Olympias was widowed after only 2 years of marriage to one of the wealthiest men in the Empire. Coming from a wealthy family herself, at only 25 years of age, she was one of the world’s richest people. Thinking a woman would not know how to handle all that money & the power it brought, & that surely it would end up being used by his enemies against him, the Emperor Arcadius ordered her to remarry his cousin. She refused! She decided instead to use her wealth to help the poor & needy of Constantinople. She founded a convent that housed 200 women devoted to taking care of the sick and poor. She started an orphanage & hospital.Olympias & John struck up a deep but not romantic friendship & encouraged each other greatly as they took a lonely & dangerous stand opposing Imperial abuse of power. John’s resistance to the Empress Eudoxia’s excess upset her so much she persuaded her husband to have John banished in 403. Rioting by the people saw his immediate recall. What provoked John was Eudoxia’s claim to be a Christian, yet insistence on doing things unworthy of a follower of Christ. As the Empress, she set the standard for the rest of the royal court to follow. When she had a silver statue of herself erected near the church, John made plain his resistance. This moved her to once again demand his exile. When news got out, rioters burned several buildings. John’s enemies blamed the riot on Olympias so she was also sent into exile.Some historians assign John a horrendous lack of tact in dealing with the rich & powerful of Constantinople; especially the Emperor & his wife. We could call it a lack of tact, or simply an unflinching courage to speak the truth to power; to leaders who claimed to be followers of Christ but whose lifestyle showed little evidence of it.John Chrysostom was a man at a crossroads. He was uniquely gifted as a preacher & teacher dear to the common people. He was bishop of the Roman Empire’s most politically influential city, so his potential to influence policy was immense. He was a major church leader at a moment in history when Church & State were joined at the hip and many church leaders were beginning to flex their political muscles. But in doing so, they forfeited their spiritual authority. They didn’t just avail themselves of civil access, they donned the trappings of worldly power in dress, diet, & domicile.John vehemently resisted this worldly corruption of the clergy. He understood that the Church’s duty is to stand as a prophetic witness TO the world, TO the civil realm, not to become its partner. While the common people loved him for this, his clerical peers & the wealthy of Constantinople were offended by him.In an earlier episode, we noted how the Early Church developed around 4 centers; Jerusalem, Antioch, Carthage & Rome. By the 4th C, Jerusalem & Carthage had lost importance but Alexandria & Constantinople filled their place. A long rivalry developed between Antioch & Alexandria that lasted for a few centuries. There were numerous reasons for it, but mostly it had to do with prestige of position; that is, which church could boast the most beloved & influential leaders.Antioch was the home church of Barnabas & Paul. It had been instrumental in the early growth of the Church as it sent out missionaries North, West & East. Many of the churches in the East owed their existence to Antioch’s faithfulness in planting new works. But Alexandria had been the center of classical scholarship for generations. Who hasn’t heard of the famous Library of Alexandria? The schools there were world-renowned. Such church luminaries as Clement, Athanasius, & Origen all hailed from Alexandria.Central to the rivalry between the 2 churches was their different methods of interpreting Scripture. You’ll remember Origen had developed a highly allegorical method of studying and teaching the Bible. The church at Alexandria adopted this methodology & followed it for generations. Antioch, on the other hand, tended to read & understand the Bible more literally. The rivalry between Antioch & Alexandria became so bitter that at points it broke out in bloodshed, as we’ll see later.For now, just know that the archbishop of Alexandria, one Theophilus, was jealous of John’s call from Antioch to be the Bishop of the Capital. When he heard John was making a lot of enemies among the rich & powerful there, he called a council nearby and, making up charges of heresy, had John deposed. John was sent into exile by Empress Eudoxia and Emperor Ar