The History of the Christian Church

This Episode is simply titled “Leo”While there’d been several bishops of the church at Rome who’d been capable leaders and under their guidance had established Rome as the premier church, if not the whole Christian world, at least in the western portion of the now declining Roman Empire, it can be fairly said that for most of the earlier bishops the person was eclipsed by the office. Bishops Callistus, Stephen, Damasus, & Innocent I all added significant authority to the Roman See. But it was Leo the Great who saw the Bishop of Rome become what we might call the first real Pope. It was with Leo I that the idea of the Papacy became real.While previous bishops at Rome had certainly been theologically astute, as befitted their office, Leo can be classed as a first-rate theologian, arguably the greatest theologian of any who came before in that office and for a century & a half after. He battled the Manichæan, Priscillianist, & Pelagian heresies, and won enduring fame for helping to finish codifying the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ.Leo’s early life is shrouded in mystery. The chief source of information about him comes from his letters & they don’t commence till AD 442 when he was already an adult. Leo was mostly likely a Roman who became a deacon, then a legate under Bishops Celestine I & Sixtus III. A legate is a special messenger, sent by a bishop, to carry messages to civil rulers. Think à Church ambassador to the king. Leo was so astute in his task as a representative for the Church, Emperor Valentinian III sent him on a special mission to settle a dispute in Gaul between a couple feuding generals. This was at a time of great turmoil in the north due to the barbarian threat. While Leo was on this peace-making mission, Bishop Sixtus died and Leo was chosen to take his seat. He served for the next 21 years.Leo describes his feelings at the assumption of his office in a sermon;“Lord, I have heard your voice calling me, and I was afraid: I considered the work which was enjoined on me, and I trembled. For what proportion is there between the burden assigned to me and my weakness, this elevation and my nothingness? What is more to be feared than exaltation without merit, the exercise of the most holy functions being entrusted to one who is buried in sin? Oh, you have laid upon me this heavy burden, bear it with me, I beseech you be you my guide and my support.”Leo’s papacy faced 2 immense problems.First:  The emergence of heresies threatened the integrity of the Church; and àSecond: The political disintegration of the Western Roman Empire.Leo offered 3 tactics in dealing with these difficulties à1)    Actions to provide essential church doctrine with a clear, orthodox position;2)    Efforts to unify church government under a sovereign papacy; and3)   Attempts at peace by negotiating with the Empire’s enemies.On the doctrinal front, Leo theologically refuted the era’s main heresies & utilized imperial criminal prosecution & banishment to get rid of unrepentant heretics. Leo’s finest achievement was probably the formation and acceptance of an orthodox Christological dogma.Though Arianism was in retreat, the 5th C battled with what’s called Eutychianism. We’re going to get into this in more depth in a soon coming episode so for now let me just say that Eutychianism was one of the 4th & 5th Cs’ attempts to understand the nature of Jesus. Was He God, Man or both? And if both, how do the 2 nature relate to each other? Eutychianism said Jesus had 2 natures, human & divine, but that the divine had completely dominated the human, like a drop of vinegar is overwhelmed by the sea. Later it will come to be known by a label you may have heard = Monophysitism.Leo’s manner of dealing with this aberrant teaching was brilliant. Rather than rely on suppression, he brought it’s main advocate, Eutychus, to Rome for lengthy discussions and, aft

This episode is titled – “The New Center.”Spread over 3 pages in Vol. 3 of his monumental work History of the Christian Church, author Philip Schaff makes a compelling argument for why it was inevitable Christianity would eventually emerge from the Roman catacombs to join the State in governing the hearts & lives of the people of the Empire. And while it was inevitable, Schaff describes how the merger resulted in the corruption of the Church. He wrote, “The Christianizing of the State amounted in great measure to the paganizing and secularizing of the Church.”We've already seen how the Church at Rome emerged to become a headquarters of Western Christianity. We need to spend a little more time here as this period of church history is crucial for understanding the eventual rift that occurred between East and West and what emerged in Europe after this, not only for the Church but for the nations that arose there.The idea of the rule of the entire Church by the Roman Pope was a slow and halting process. The title “Pope / Papa” wasn’t important to the emergence of the Bishop of Rome as the leader of the Church. It was a term of affection used by many Christians for their pastor and was used in a more formal sense in Alexandria decades before it was used of the Roman Bishop. It wasn't until the 6th C that the word “Pope” was reserved exclusively for Rome's Bishop, long after he'd already claimed primacy as Peter’s successor.It's important as well we make a distinction between the honor the Roman church held and the overarching authority its bishop later claimed. There’s ample evidence of the respect accorded Rome's Christian community.Rome was, after all, the capital of the Empire. The church there was the largest and richest. By the mid-3rd C, it claimed some 30,000 members, served by 150 priests, supporting 1500 widows & the poor. It had a long record of remaining orthodox and generous.For these reasons, it was regarded as the lead church of the Western Empire. Though there’s no solid historical evidence to support it, Christians of the 2nd thru 4th Cs believed Peter and Paul founded the church at Rome. It was thought each bishop of Rome handed his authority and office to his successor so that the current Pope, whoever that was, was sitting in the Apostolic seat of Peter.We can see why this would be important to the Church when the Gnostics were a threat to the faith. They claimed to possess special secret knowledge & traditions that had been passed on by Jesus to the apostles, then to them. In contrast to this fiction, Rome could actually name their bishops all the way back to the original apostles. This list was memorized by young believers like state capitals are memorized by students today.While the church at Rome was regarded with great respect by most believers, this honor didn't always extend to its bishop. There’s much evidence of church fathers, like Irenaeus & Cyprian who disagreed vehemently with positions taken by the bishop of Rome. Until Constantine, there’s no evidence the church at large took direction from Rome's lead pastor.It's important at this point to speak about the changes that took place in the structure of the churches during the 3rd & 4th Cs. This change came about for 2 reasons: Councils & Arch-bishops.The first development that led to an alteration in the way churches developed was Church Councils. As the Church grew & individual congregations developed in more places, leaders of the Church recognized the need to coordinate their efforts & teaching. The emergence of heretics prompted elders and pastors to gather to discuss how to address the challenge of false teaching. These gatherings were at first informal and irregular, called at random by provincial leaders. In the 3rd C they began meeting annually in more formal Councils to share news and establish policy that would be observed in each church. These provincial counci

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.” Tho

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

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

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

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

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’ descript

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 import

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  & beginn

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.D

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 b

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

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 & conce

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 selec