All this diversity of belief and practice, and the intolerance that occasionally results, makes it difficult to know whether we should think of Christianity as one thing or lots of things, whether we should speak of Christianity or Christianities." - Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, James A. Gray Distinguished Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
I wrote the Following paper for a college class. Please do not copy without permission.
The
Rise of Christianity
Seth
Todd
History
4A
Professor
Sanchez
March
18, 2011
Some
Christians don’t have any understanding of their own Bible and how it came to
be. A false proposition that some may
have is that Christianity grew from a single group that was coherent in their
beliefs. Another notion many have is
that the original manuscripts exist or that there is no conflict among the
manuscripts. Missionary work, social
conditions, and laws of Rome
allowed for a single group among many to emerge. As diverse as Christianity was then it is
just as diverse today. Read
“Christianity Today” and try to explain what is a “Christian.” The only thread that unites this diversity is
a belief in a non-biblical Triune God which resulted from Early Christianity
and its debates. This belief satisfied
the monotheism that Romans craved and Christians wanted.
Basic leadership of the church: The Structure
Jesus Christ,
while on the earth chose twelve apostles.
To them he gave power and authority along with the command to preach His
gospel to all of the world. Even after
Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus another apostle was chosen by the remaining
eleven to take his place.1 Paul, also known as Saul of Tarsus, is
mentioned as an apostle.2 So
it seems that the twelve apostles should have continued replacing those who
died. However, that was not the case. “Most
of the apostles are said to have suffered martyrdom; but John is believed to have
died a natural death.”3 There was no continuation of that apostolic
authority and the several churches were left basically to themselves. Thus one sees Christian groups under names
like Gnostics, Marcionites, Ebionites, “proto-orthodox” (a claim by some that
they were inherently right) as well as a long list of others. Therefore Bishops of the various established
churches took control or tried to take control through forged and/or authentic
documents in the name of apostles or bishops.
Hence we see the ante-Nicene Father Origen praised in one period of time
and dismissed in another. The battle was
on for who was right and who was wrong.
As is the case with most other large cities in the Roman Empire , the
person who first brought Christianity to Rome is unknown, but the
Roman church has traditionally looked back to the two leading figures in
first-century Christianity as its founders: Peter and Paul. Although neither apostle
was the literal founder of the church in Rome , both
Peter and Paul made their way to Rome
sometime before the mid-60s, and both perished during the Neronian persecution
of Christians. Peter was widely recognized as the leader of the original twelve
disciples, and some saw him in a sense as Christ’s successor. Despite being a Jew himself, Paul was the
leading protagonist of Gentile Christianity, the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Having these two men associated with the earliest days of the church in Rome gave the church
there great authority in its debates with its rivals over the right to assert
the correct form of Christianity. This authority was recognized outside of Rome
as well; for example, Irenaeus of Gaul, one of the leading apologists for
Christianity. . ., writes in his book Against Heresies, “It is a matter of
necessity that every Church should agree with this Church [Rome ], on account of its pre-eminent
authority, that is, the faithful everywhere...” (Against Heresies 3.3.2).4
Various offices
were overseen by the apostles. In the Bible, it mentions deacons, teachers,
evangelists, prophets, seventy elders, etc. The apostles preached their gospel
and organized churches in areas surrounding the Mediterranean
Sea and beyond. When the apostles died, the church was left
rudderless as a ship on the sea.
The Methods Used To Spread the Religion
I. Caring For the Sick, Needy, Purchasing
of Slaves and Prisoners.
According to Roman
law, slaves and prisoners were able to be freed by means of purchasing their
freedom. These early Christians often took care of the afflicted and poor. By
this means, many were converted to Christianity.
In his Apologeticus, Tertullian clarified how
these community chests functioned: Even if there is a chest of a sort, it is
not made up of money paid in entrance-fees, as if religion were a matter of a
contract. Every man once a month brings some modest coin – or whenever he wishes,
and only if he does wish, and if he can; for nobody
is compelled; it is a voluntary offering. You
might call them the trust funds of piety. For they
are not spent upon banquets nor drinking-parties nor thankless eating-houses; but to feed the poor and to bury them, for
boys and girls who lack property and parents,
and then for slaves grown old and ship-wrecked
mariners; and any who may be in mines, islands or prisons, provided that it is for the sake of God’s school,
become the pensioners of their confession.5
The apostles established churches then often left on their
journey to other places. Those left in charge appointed others to spread the
religion in surrounding areas. The apostle for that area may travel and return
later on such as the apostle Paul did according to the Acts of the Apostles. Writing letters was another form of
communication. Some of these letters were collected and read in the churches.
Unfortunately, sometimes there were forgeries that were penned in the name of
an apostle. Some of these are mentioned in Professor Bart D. Ehrman’s book Lost Christianities: The Battles for
Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. After the apostles died, bishops
started claiming authority over the churches.
Note that it was not until the end of the second
century that a general consensus emerged with respect to the scriptural canon
of the New Testament and a ministry based on the episcopate. Paul’s epistles
testify to the theological and behavioral issues that threatened the growth, and
in some cases, the survival of the various churches clustered in the eastern Mediterranean . Paul’s missionary strategy, as detailed in
his letters and The Acts of the Apostles, was to preach in select cities
in different provinces and in the process to establish Christian communities, whence knowledge of Christ’s teachings were spread by
elders to outlying settlements.6
II. Roman Law, Social Conditions and Changing
Mores
As
we have seen, the charitable acts of the Christians and the various regions
where they spread their religion brought in great numbers of the poor. The
danger here is they were converting pagans who may have a different
understanding of religion and its purpose; for instance, the worship of idols
and the gods of the Roman Empire . Mithraism
was one of the pagan religions of the east where they worshipped Mithra, the
sun god.
. . . outcasts did contribute largely to the spread of Christianity
(and Mithraism). It brought hope and a sense of human dignity to the despised
and rejected of the earth. Of the immense numbers of lesser officials who
carried on the vast organization of the Roman Empire, most perhaps, were taken
from the ranks of the freedmen and quondam slaves, drawn from a great variety
of races and already familiar with pagan cults of all kinds--Egyptian, Syrian,
Chaldean, Iranian, and so forth. This fact helped to give to
Christianity--under the fine tolerance of the Empire--its democratic character
and also its willingness to accept all. The rude and menial masses, who had
hitherto been almost beneath the notice of Greek and Roman culture, flocked in;
and though this was doubtless, as time went on, a source of weakness to the
Church. . .7
Manuscripts had to be handwritten because the
printing press had not been invented. The laborious task of copying large
documents was time consuming and allowed for mistakes to alter the originals.
Also, a scribe might delete, add, or make notes in the margin that might be
later inserted by other scribes. With the conversion of so many pagans, whose
understanding might be questioned, the thoughts or intents of the original
author could be distorted.
The rise of Christianity between 150 and 800 c.e. is
the story of millions of pagans who contributed as much as Augustine, Eusebius,
and other well-known theologians to Christianity. The “masses” did not get to
author the historical record or Christian literature. This silence should not
be mistaken for a lack of agency. Lost to history are thousands of pagan
converts, many of whom became clerics and monks, who interpreted Christian
theology and ritual in accordance with pagan traditions. This is perhaps most
apparent in the cult of the saints, which was central to the Christianity
embraced by pagan Europe . The cult of the saints
shifted the focus of Christianity from a somewhat distant God to local heroes
who once “dead,” continued to act as protectors.8
I do not want
to imply that Roman Catholics worship idols. Prayers to saints are like asking
a friend to pray for you. However, with the rise of Christianity after the
conversion of the Emperor Constantine, these saints took the place of local
deities and possibly worshipped by converted pagans like their ancient gods.
Some of the Church
fathers, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Lactantius, admitted that
pagans believed in the unity of God. The philo-
sophic monotheism of Plato, in which the idea of Good and God coincided, was widely spread as Platonism became a spiritual force in the Empire.9
sophic monotheism of Plato, in which the idea of Good and God coincided, was widely spread as Platonism became a spiritual force in the Empire.9
The belief by pagans in the unity of God
combined with the philosophy of Plato and the influence of Judaism’s belief in Yahweh
was a driving force behind Christianity justifying monotheism of a Triune God.
Decadence
ran rapid in the Roman Empire . They sought for things that would not satisfy
their wants or needs. Like an addiction
to cocaine or pornography, a fulfilled life escaped them.
The Graeco-Roman
world came slowly to itself, through confusion and pain. Greece , in the
Peloponnesian war, lost her once joyful faith and cast off the last restraints in
the Alexandrian epoch. From the second Punic war Rome found herself religiously destitute.
Self-indulgence following upon restraint brought its inevitable fruits, especially
among the Romans. We can detect from the
beginning of the first century B.C., until the end of the first A.D., a widespread disgust with life--a taedium vitae. A rising sense of personality brought pain. Self-indulgence was one of the many antecedents of satiety. While men were healthily occupied in public and national affairs, the cry of the individual was not heard. The misery and poverty caused by the Roman conquests and civil wars destroyed the basis of a regular social life. Idleness brought its concomitant--weariness. Amusements began to pall, and means of excitement were exhausted.10
beginning of the first century B.C., until the end of the first A.D., a widespread disgust with life--a taedium vitae. A rising sense of personality brought pain. Self-indulgence was one of the many antecedents of satiety. While men were healthily occupied in public and national affairs, the cry of the individual was not heard. The misery and poverty caused by the Roman conquests and civil wars destroyed the basis of a regular social life. Idleness brought its concomitant--weariness. Amusements began to pall, and means of excitement were exhausted.10
Many
Romans were “hitting bottom” in their personal lives. In other words, life was
becoming void and meaningless. Many were searching for something to fill their
souls with joy and happiness. The old gods weren’t cutting it anymore. Many
Greeks and Romans were becoming desensitized to the pains of common humanity. Something
had to change but it would take time.
A belief in the
unity of God was one of the most marked advances. Of this the Jews were the
first missionaries, who 'had a passion for monotheism in their blood.' A movement
set in toward monotheism from the earliest days of Greek philosophy and in
Greek tragedy. The first problem that Greek thought set itself was to discover the
One amid the many, unity amid plurality.11
This
would be later a matter of contention among the Christians. They questioned the
divinity of Christ. They also had to somehow incorporate the Holy Spirit into a
meaningful description of monotheism. This type of god was what the Greeks and
Romans eventually sought.
III. Martyrdom
Martyrdom
was one way of spreading the beliefs of Christianity. Christians were originally thought of as
atheists. They had no idol or
temple. They would not serve the Roman
gods. If there was an epidemic then the
Christians were blamed. If the Romans
lost a battle then it was the fault of the Christians. Therefore, Christians either denounced their
faith, or were made slaves or killed by violent means. Christians who were brought to Rome proclaimed their
“good news” along the way. What was
meant to stifle Christians became a means of missionary work.
In his personal
aphorisms, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who being a Stoic approved suicide,
complained of the theatrical publicity of Christian martyrs. That publicity was
the consequence of the Roman decision to condemn Christians to face hungry wild
beasts in the lately built Coloseum or provincial amphitheaters, providing
entertainment for crowds of spectators twenty or thirty thousand strong, an
astonished audience of huge size for the martyrs’ witness. By the third century everybody knew the
outlines of Christian belief and believers’ willingness to die for the faith.12
Conversion of Constantine
The Emperor
Constantine began in the year 313 to attribute his success on the battlefield
to the God of the Christians. Professor and author Harold Bloom, a Jew,
recognized a parallel between the Roman religion and Christianity.
Jesus Christ is a
new God on the Greco-Roman model of Zeus-Jove usurping his father,
Chronos-Saturn. The Emperor Constantine,
in establishing Christianity as the religion of Roman authority, shrewdly
recognized in Jesus Christ a continuation of pagan tradition. Yahweh, like an
outworn Saturn, retreated to the remnants of Jewry, until he returned as the
Allah of Islam13
Jesus Christ,
himself a Jew, worshipped the God of the Jews. He referred to
himself as his Only Begotten Son. Although
some Christians accepted the records of former Hebrew prophets who foretold of
the coming of Christ, there seemed to be a transition to Jesus Christ versus
the Old Testament God, Yahweh.
Council of Nicaea
There
was much contention among various Christian groups and bishops. Almost three centuries after the death of
Jesus Christ, a council was formed with bishops invited to reconcile beliefs particularly
with respect to God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. Even before Constantine was baptized as a Christian he
attended the council of 300 bishops and made a proposal. Isn’t there some irony in this?
Constantine proposed that the
Greek term homoousios, “of the same
substance,” be used to describe the common faith, and the churches of the West immediately
accepted the proposal, for they had long used Tertullian’s Latin formulation
“three persons in one substance.” The term was less popular with the bishops
from the East, in part because the same term was used by the adoptionist bishop
of Antioch Paul of Samosata, a contemporary and opponent of Origen, but because
the emperor insisted on using the term, all but two eventually accepted it.14
Here then we see an
emperor, who is not a bishop, formulating doctrine for the
whole of Christianity. He sides with the “proto-orthodox” (those
whose orthodoxy would be seen as the unerring truth to Christians). This wasn’t the only idea proposed but
because the emperor weighed in on the issue the “proto-orthodox” of Rome would win this doctrinal
battle. It would be well worth for Christians
to study the other proposals and know which of various manuscripts would become
the canon of scripture. Also a study of the differences between the different
found manuscripts shows how variables have crept in or had been removed. No
originals exist. We can only piece
together what might have been the original but that would still remain
questionable.
Triune God as one God
Jesus said: I am
come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his
own name, him ye will receive.15It is one thing to say you are the
Father; it is another to say that you come in the name of the Father. Like an
ambassador representing his/her president, doesn’t make that person the
president. Bloom takes a strong stand on
the monotheism of the Triune God. “If the Trinity truly is monotheistic, then
its sole God is Jesus Christ, not Yeshua of Nazareth but his hyperbolic expansion
into usurper of his beloved abba.”16
Abba is Aramaic for “dad” or “daddy.” It
takes on a personal intimate tone as a child to his father. On the cross, Jesus, cries out to “Abba” his
Father. This is what Bloom is talking
about. Christians, in his opinion, began
to center everything in Christ and not in the Old Testament or “covenant” God,
Yeshua.
A
summary of how the Christian Church rose to prominence by the proto-orthodox Christians
is given by the well-known scholar and debater, former Evangelical turned
agnostic, Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill :
(1) The
proto-orthodox claimed ancient roots for their religion-unlike, say, the
Marcionites-by clinging to the Scriptures of Judaism, which, they insisted,
predicted Christ and the religion established in his name. (2) At the same time
they rejected the practices of contemporary Judaism as taught in these
Scriptures-unlike, say, the Ebionites-allowing their form of Christianity to be
a universal faith attractive to and feasible for the majority of people in the
ancient world. (3) The proto-orthodox stressed a church hierarchy-unlike, say,
some Gnostics, who believed that since everyone (in Gnostic communities) had
equal access to the secret knowledge that brings salvation, everyone had an
equal standing in the faith. The church hierarchy was invested with an
authority that was used to determine what was to be believed, how church
affairs (including worship and liturgy) were to be conducted, and which books
were to be accepted as scriptural authorities. (4) The proto-orthodox were in
constant communication with one another, determined to establish theirs as a
worldwide communion. Witness the allies who met Ignatius on his way to
martyrdom and the letters he wrote in return, the letter written by the church
in Rome to the church in Corinth ,
and the accounts of Christian martyrs sent out by the church of Smyrna
Hyppolytus and Tertullian,
ante-Nicene fathers, raised these concerns about the trinity of God. “Together
they raised a number of biblical and logical objections: Why does Scripture say
that God sent his son, rather than that he sent himself? How can anyone be his own father? To whom is
Jesus speaking when he prays? How can Jesus talk about going to his Father
(John 20:17) if he is the Father? And is it really conceivable that God the
Father was killed?”18
And what about
Jesus himself? What was he implying when
he prayed for his disciples: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me.”19 Were they at some point in the heavens to
be a single conglomerate essence as a god?
The ante-Nicene
Father Origin had this to say: “And they are two separate persons, but one in
unity and concord of mind and in identity of will; so that he who has seen the
Son, ‘radiance of glory’ and ‘expression of the being’ of God, has seen God in
him who is the image of God.”20 So you see not everyone was in
agreement about the nature of God in the Early Christian Church.
I
do not mean to offend Christians nor do I think they need to turn from their
faith like Dr. Ehrman but I do think that the rise of Christianity has bearing
on their beliefs and should cause some introspection and discovery of
Christianities’ past and the current confusion today; i.e., homosexuality,
abortion, prophecy, authority, mega-churches, small churches, blaming Americas
ills on sin, etc. Christianity was born
out of confusion and continues to be confused today.
Endnotes
1. Acts
1:25-26 Authorized (King James) Version.
2. Acts
14:14 ibid.
3. John
Walter Wayland and Walter B. Young. The
Twelve Apostles: Who They
Were and What They
Did. (Mount Morris: Brethren Publishing, 1907 Original from the University
of Virginia Digitized Jan 5, 2009), 163. Accessed March 7, 2011. http://books.google.com/ebooks/.
4. James
Adair. Christianity: The Ebook.
(Journal of Buddist Ethics Online
Books: 2007), 192. Accessed March 3, 2011. http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader/
5. T. R. Glover and Gerald H. Rendall, trans., Tertullian
[Apologeticus and De
Spectaculis] Minucius Felix
[Octavius] (Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical
Library, Harvard University Press, 1931),
175–176.
6. Edward Carpener. Pagan
and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning.
(Charlottesville, VA: University
of Virginia Library, 1998), 64-65.
7. Ibid. 220-221.
8. Daniel T. Reff. Plagues.
Priests, and Demons: Sacred Narratives and the Rise
of Christianity in the Old World
and New. (New York :
Cambridge University
9. S. Angus. The
Environment of Early Christianity. (New
York : Charles
Scribner’s and Sons, 1919), 95.
10. Ibid. 71.
11. Ibid. 94.
12. Henry
Chadwick. The Early Church. Revised
ed., (Penguin:1993 Series, Originally
published: Pelican, 1967), 5.
13. Harold
Bloom. Jesus and Yahweh: The Names
Divine. (New York :
Riverhead
Books, 2005), 98.
14. Adair. Christianity: The Ebook, 242. Accessed
March 3, 2011.
http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader/
15. John 5:43
Authorized (King James) Version.
16. Bloom. Jesus
and Yahweh: The Names Divine, 96.
17. Bart D.
Ehrman. Lost Christianities: The Battles
For Scripture and Faiths We
Never Knew. (New York :
Oxford University
18. Ibid. 153.
19. John 17:21 Authorized (King
James) Version.
20. Henry Bettenson. The Early Christian Fathers. (London:
Oxford University Press, 1956), 336.
Bibliography
Adair, James. Christianity:
The Ebook. Journal of Buddist Ethics Online
Books: 2007 Accessed March 3, 2011.
http://www.netlibrary.com/Reader/
Angus, S. The Environment of Early Christianity. New York : Charles
Scribner’s
and Sons, 1919.
Bettenson, Henry. The
Early Christian Fathers. London : Oxford University
Bloom, Harold. Jesus
and Yahweh: The Names Divine. (New
York : Riverhead
Books, 2005.
Carpener, Edward. Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and
Meaning.
Chadwick, Henry. The
Early Church. Revised ed., Penguin:1993 Series,Originally
published: Pelican, 1967.
Ehrman, Bart D. Lost
Christianities: The Battles For Scripture and Faiths We
Never
Knew. (New York : Oxford University
Glover, T. R. and Gerald H. Rendall,
trans., Tertullian [Apologeticus and De
Spectaculis]
Minucius Felix [Octavius] Cambridge , MA:
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard
University
Wayland, John Walter and Walter B. Young. The Twelve Apostles: Who They
Were and What They Did. Mount
Morris University
of Virginia
