The History of the Christian Church

We’re going to go forward in time from our last episode nearly a millennium. Last time we talked about the Gnostics and the serious challenge they presented the Early Church. The dualism that lay at the heart of Gnosticism continued to rear its hoary head in the centuries that followed. It was part & parcel of the Zoroastrianism & Manichaeanism rooted in Persia and was the official faith of the Sassanid Empire. Dualistic ideas were so popular, they managed to infiltrate many Christians communities in both the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire. When Rome fell and Byzantium carried on in its place, the influence of dualism lingered. Church leaders were able to hold it at bay by using the work of earlier fathers who fought Gnosticism. But as those works fell out of use, dualism resurged. (more…)

For 2nd generation Christians—let’s say, those who came to faith after AD 70, Jesus became less a person they’d personally known, or the friend of a friend—but more of a mysterious agent in a cosmic drama. (more…)

We start a new series here in Season 2 of CS. This time we’ll take a look at some of the notable Heretics & Heresies in Church History. Most of these we covered in Season 1. This time we’ll go a bit deeper. As we do, we just might discover that some of those movements and groups that have been classed as heretical, weren’t. Aberrant maybe, but heretical, not! As has been said; Winners write history. They get to tell the tale. It seems at least some of the reporting of Church officials misrepresented / mischaracterized the position of those they opposed and were able to stamp out. When the writings of these groups were systematically round & destroyed, all we’re left with is the account of their opponents; a questionable source at best. (more…)

We’ve worked our way through 6 of what are known as the 7 Ecumenical Councils of Church History. We’ve examined the Councils and the Creeds they produced. Although, after the First Council in 325 at Nicaea, each subsequent Council claimed that all it was doing was refining the verbiage of the Nicaean Creed. Each claimed it was merely an extension of the ground-breaking work of that first august Council convened by the Emperor Constantine I.It seems fitting then that the last of the 7 Ecumenical Councils should come back to Nicaea 450 yrs later. But it’s work had little to do with the Nicaean Creed.These 7 Councils are called Ecumenical because they are generally accepted by both the Western Roman Catholic & Eastern Orthodox churches as normative in defining doctrine. The Roman Church adds additional Councils and their creeds as definitive which the Eastern Church rejects as the Eastern Church recognizes its own councils and creeds Rome ignores. And of course the huge Nestorian Church in the East stopped honoring the councils with Ephesus.Before we get to the 7th Council, we need to talk a bit about a Council that was held 12 yrs after the Third Council of Constantinople we ended the last episode with.In 692, Emperor Justinian II convened yet another council in the Eastern capital to finish some of the work that had been omitted by both the 5th & 6th Councils, notably, some canons that needed addressing. For that reason, this Council is called the 5th-6th Council. But since that sounds silly, let’s use Latin so it’ll sound more scholarly = Voila! It’s the Quinisext Council. It was attended by 215 only Eastern bishops.Most of the canon work that was done aimed at settling ritual differences and coming to a standard practice of discipline for clergy in different regions. Since the Council was attended exclusively by Eastern bishops, it was the Eastern practice what was approved, at the expense of those in the West.The Council condemned the custom of Armenian churches who used undiluted wine in Communion. They also banned clerical nepotism, and the atrocious practice of eating eggs and cheese on the Saturdays and Sundays of Lent. Several canons seemed aimed at provoking hostility from Rome.While the Orthodox Church accepts the Quinisext Council as legit, Western Churches never accepted it as authoritative or in any sense ecumenical. How could it be when no Western bishop attended. Oh, there was a supposed papal legate in attendance; at least the record marks him there.But Rome says no such person ever existed! The Council made him up to make it appear the Pope’s authority was included. The Venerable Bede called the Quinisext Council the “Reprobate Synod.”The Pope at the time of the Council was Sergius I. He refused to endorse the canons & was ordered arrested by the Emperor & carried to Constantinople. But the City of Ravenna’s militia thwarted the troops attempt to seize him.Ah. Isn’t all this just lovely stuff? Isn’t it wonderful hearing about how loving and humble church leaders were? This is what happens when Church & State become aligned under the rule of frail, fallible human beings. This is what happens when those IN authority fail to abide under it.One of the most important products of the Quinisext Council was the official establishment of Pentarchy.Pentarchy was originally articulated in legislation laid out by Emperor Justinian I in the mid 6th C, then included in canon law in the Council which ranked the ecclesiastical sees of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in order of authority & pre-eminence in that order. Justinian linked the administrative authority of the Church to that of the State. Rome was regarded as first among equals. But by the time of the Quinisext Council, Constantinople was regarded as New Rome and had achieve parity with Rome in terms of ecclesiastical weight. At least, the Eastern Bishops thought so. Rome

Let’s get ready to rumble!Well--It’s not exactly a rumble we’re in for in this episode, so much as a tumble into the rabbit hole of theological wrangling that took place after the Council of Chalcedon that led to the 2nd & 3rd Councils at Constantinople in 553 & 680. (more…)

In 431, the Council of Ephesus dismissed Nestorius’ explanation of the dual nature of Christ in favor of Cyril’s. But that Council was swayed more by circumstance and politics than by sound theology. While Nestorius’ Christology was mis-represented by his critics to be proposing, not just two natures to Jesus, but two persons, Cyril’s Christology put such heavy emphasis on Jesus’ deity, his Christology leaned toward monophysitism; that is, casting Jesus as having a single nature. (more…)

In the last couple episodes we’ve set the scene for the Council of Ephesus in 431. Last time we did biographies of the two main players at the Council, Nestorius and Cyril.We ended with a brief review of their different Christologies; that is, how they viewed the dual nature of Christ as God & Man. Let’s pick it up now with the events leading to the Council. (more…)

In the last episode, we introduced the political situation framing the debate that ensued between two church leaders at the Council of Ephesus in 431.Those two leaders were Nestorius, Patriarch of the Capital Church at Constantinople and Cyril, arch-bishop at Alexandria. Let’s get in to the background on these two men so we can better understand the brueha that happened at Ephesus. (more…)

Buckle up for this episode, because it’s a rocky ride. We’ve come to the Third Ecumenical Church Council. And for those of you who remember this one from Season 1, you know where in for troubled times. We’re looking at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and the battle between Cyril & Nestorius. (more…)

This is part 5 of our series on the Creeds in which we’ll be taking a look at the First Council of Constantinople.In Part 3 we looked at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. While the Church had a lot to deal with in the decades that followed, they didn’t convene another Council for almost 60 yrs. (more…)

This is part 4 of our series on the Creeds.Because most of the creeds were the product of a Council of one kind or another, when dealing with the creeds, we have to talk about the Council. (more…)

With two introductory episodes on the Creeds under our belt, sash, or whatever else you use to hold up your pants, let’s move now to the Council & Creed of Nicaea.What’s referred to as the Nicene Creed is the product of not one, but two councils held about 60 yrs apart. The first was held in the city of Nicaea in 325, the other in Constantinople in 381. The 2 cities are about 140 kms or 86 mls apart. The Nicene Creed may be the most famous in Church history because it addressed the issue of the Trinity; that is, how Christians worship one God Who reveals Himself in three-persons; Father, Son, And Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed was the first to obtain the imprimatur of authority over all churches. (more…)

While we got a good start in our series on the Creeds last episode, it behooves us to back up a bit and do a brief review of what we’re talking about when we look at the Creeds. There are four terms we need to define as sometimes they get confused; creeds, confessions, catechisms, and their relationship to councils. (more…)

In the 150 episodes of Season 1, and now 9 episodes into Season 2 of CS, our review of the History of the Christian Church has only touched on the Creeds incidentally. We’ve mentioned the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and so on. But we’ve not gone into depth on any of them. There are some students and scholars of Church History who’d consider that a kind of academic crime. To neglect the creeds as we have would be like studying flight without considering the rules of aerodynamics. It’s unthinkable! (more…)

This episode is a bit different from our usual fare in that it’s devoted to the subject of art in Church History. It’s in no way intended to be a comprehensive review of religious art. We’ll take just a cursory look at the development of art in the early centuries.Much has been written about the philosophy of art. And as anyone who’s taken an art history course in college knows, much debate has ensued over what defines art. It’s not our aim here to enter that fray, but instead of step back and simply chart the development of artistic expression in the First Centuries.It’s to be expected the followers of Jesus would get around to using art as an expression of their faith quickly in Church History. Man is, after all, an emotional being and art is often the product of that emotion. People who would convert from headlong hedonism to an austere asceticism didn’t usually do so simply based on cold intellectualism. Strong emotions were involved. Those emotions often found their output in artistic expression.Thus, we have Christian art. Emotions & the imagination are as much in need of redemption and capable of sanctification, as the reason and will. We’d better hope so, at least, or we’re all doomed to a grotesquely lopsided spiritual life. How sad it would be if the call to love God with all our heart, soul & mind didn’t extend to our creative faculty and art.Indeed, the Christian believes the work of the Holy Spirit after her/his conversion, is to conform the believer into the very image of Christ. And since God is The Creator, it’s reasonable to assume the Spirit would bend humanity’s penchant for artifice to serve the glory of God and the enjoyment of man.Scripture even says we are to worship God “in the beauty of holiness.” A review of the instructions for the making of the tabernacle make it clear God’s intention was that it be a thing of astounding beauty. And looked at from what we’d call a classical perspective, nearly all art aims to simply duplicate the beauty God as First Artist made when He spoke and the universe leapt into existence.Historians tend to divide Early Church History into two large blocks using The First Council of Nicaea in 325 as the dividing line. The Ante-Nicaean Era runs from the time of the Apostles, the Apostolic Age, to Nicaea. Then the Post-Nicaean Era runs from the Council to The Medieval Era. This was the time of the first what are called 7 Ecumenical Councils; the last of which, is conveniently called the 2nd Nicaean Council, held in 787. So the Ante-Nicaean Era lasted only a couple hundred yrs while the Post-Nicaean Age was 500.It would be nice if Art Historians would sync up their timelines to this plan, but they divide the history of Church Art differently. They refer to Pre-Constantinian Art, while From the 4th thru 7th Cs is called Early Christian Art.The beginnings of identifiable Christian art are located in the last decades of the 2nd C. Now, it’s not difficult to imagine there’d been some artistic expression connected to believers before this; it’s just that we have no enduring record of it. Why is easy to surmise. Christians were a persecuted group and apart from some notable exceptions, were for the most part comprised of the lower classes. Christians simply didn’t want to draw attention to themselves on one hand, and on the other, there wasn’t a source of patronage base for art in service of the Gospel.Another reason there wasn’t much art imagery generated before the 2nd C is because early generations of believers were mostly Jewish with a long-standing prohibition of making graven images, lest they violate the Commandments against idolatry. By the mid 2nd C, the Church had shifted to a primarily Gentile body. Gentiles had little cultural opposition to the use of images. Indeed, their prior paganism encouraged it. They quickly learned they were not to make idols, but had no reluctance to use images a symbols and representations to communica