Early Christianity

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source

Early Christianity is the Christianity of the three centuries between the death of Jesus (c. 30) and the First Council of Nicaea (325). The term is sometimes used in a narrower sense of just the very first followers (disciples) of Jesus of Nazareth and the faith as preached and practiced by the Twelve Apostles, their contemporaries, and their immediate successors, also called the Apostolic Age.

Early Christianity, which began within Judaism, became clearly distinct from Rabbinic Judaism. It continued to revere the Jewish Bible, generally using the Septuagint translation that was in general use among Greek-speaking Jews and Gentile Godfearers, and added to it the writings that would become the New Testament, thus developing the first Christian Biblical canons. It defended Christian beliefs against criticism by non-Christian Jews and followers of other Roman religions, survived various persecutions, consisted of divisions that accused each other of heresy, and developed church hierarchy. Christianity synthesized Jewish morals, Greek theology, and Roman administration. What started as a religious movement within Second Temple Judaism became, by the end of this period, the favored religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great (leading later to the rise of Christendom), and a significant religion also outside of the empire. The church prevailed over pagans and heretics because it offered an attractive doctrine and because the church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals. The First Council of Nicaea marks the end of this era and the beginning of the period of the first Seven Ecumenical Councils (325 - 787).

Origin of Christianity as a distinct religion

Jesus and all his original followers were Jews or Jewish proselytes. The followers of Jesus composed a sect of Judaism marked by their belief that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah and that the Kingdom of God had come or would soon come, in fulfilment of expectation (). The apostles, especially St. Paul, also gained converts among the gentiles (non-Jews). Practice among the groups that followed Jesus included those who were strictly Jewish, or those strongly attracted to Jewish practice, including the church leaders in Jerusalem. Paul's epistles founded Christian theology, marking a distinction from Judaism. He also persuaded the leaders of the Jerusalem Church to allow Gentile converts exemption from full Jewish law (see Council of Jerusalem). Luke, writing near the end of the first century, identified the Roman Centurion Cornelius as the first Gentile (non-Jewish) convert. Jews who did not convert to Christianity and the growing Christian community gradually became more hostile toward each other. After the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70, Jerusalem ceased to be the center of Jewish religious life, and probably Christian religious life as well. Rabbinic Judaism developed as mainstream Jewish practice, first in Yavne, where the Great Sanhedrin was first reconstituted. Rabbinical Jews rejected the recent works of the Septuagint, such as 2 Maccabees, which Christians retained. Early in the second century, Christians began to accept early Christian texts as scripture. Christianity established itself as a predominantly Gentile religion that spanned the Roman Empire and beyond. Scholar James D. G. Dunn has proposed that Peter was the bridge-man (i.e. the pontifex maximus) between the two other "prominent leading figures": Paul and James the Just.

The gospels that eventually became synoptic gospels of the Christian Bible identify Jesus as establishing a New Covenant with his flesh and blood, the bread and wine of the Eucharist. The previous covenant was that of Moses, called the Mosaic Covenant.

Christian groups such as Ebionites that insisted on circumcision and other aspects of Jewish law were disparaged as Judaizers, especially after the 3rd century.

Beliefs

Early Christian beliefs were based on the apostolic preaching (kerygma), considered to be preserved in tradition and, according as was produced, in New Testament scripture.

Christology

Divinity of Christ

Most Christians identified Jesus as divine from a very early period, although holding a variety of competing views as to what exactly this implied. Early Christian views tended to see Jesus as a unique agent of God; by the Council of Nicaea in 325 he was identified as God in the fullest sense.

The first and second-century texts that would later be canonized as the New Testament repeatedly refer to Jesus' divinity, though there is scholarly debate as to whether or not they call him God. Within 20-30 years of the death of Jesus, Paul, who developed the first Christian theology, refers to Jesus as the resurrected Son of God, the savior who would return from heaven and save his faithful, dead and living, from the imminent destruction of the world. The Synoptic Gospels describe him as the Son of God, born of the Holy Spirit, who will return to judge the nations. The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the human incarnation of the divine word or "Logos" (see Jesus the Logos) and True Vine. The Book of Revelation depicts Jesus as the "the first and the last", who died and now lives for ever and who holds the keys of death and Hades, and as the Alpha and Omega who is to come soon. The book speaks of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God as reigning with him for a thousand years before the final defeat of Satan and the Judgement at the Great White Throne.

The term "Logos" was used in Greek philosophy and in Jewish religious writing (see Philo) to mean the ultimate ordering principle of the universe. Those who rejected the identification of Jesus with the Logos, rejecting also the Gospel of John, were called Alogi (see also Monarchianism).

Adoptionists, such as the Ebionites, considered him as a man who became the Son of God at his baptism or resurrection.

Trinity

The Trinity is a post-New Testament doctrine. However, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are associated in various New Testament passages. The Great Commission of possibly reflects the baptismal practice at Matthew's time. Baptism has been in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost since the end of the first century. speaks of baptism "in the name of Jesus Christ", which some interpret as another method of baptism, while others do not, since "in the name of" is used elsewhere in Acts to mean not a form of words but "by the authority of", "for the sake of". Aside from this verse, Matthew does not equate Jesus with God nor does he specify inequality either, though he indicates a special relationship between them. One of the elements virtually universal among diverse early Christians was the understanding that Jesus the Son was uniquely united with God the Father.

According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the Trinity was revealed to the disciples by revelation and in religious visions called theoria during the Theophany and the Transfiguration of Jesus called the Tabor Light or uncreated light.

The close of the early Christian era is defined as the First Council of Nicea, which gave the trinity its dogmatic form. But the term trinity (coined by Tertullian) and concepts related to the trinity existed earlier in the church. The phrase "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" became common, especially at baptism. Another trinitarian formula, "Glory to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit," was common even before the Arian controversy. However, this earlier formula does not express the co-equality of the three persons.

The Council used the Greek term homousios (literally "of the same substance, essence or being") to express its view of the relation of the Son to the Father. However, it also appears in the early Christian era as used by Origen, Paul of Samosata, and Alexander of Alexandria though not without controversy, see for example Synods of Antioch . Various Christian writings refer to Jesus as a man and as God, but it was this Council that gave official sanction to the common Trinity formulation using this term.

Many, including Oneness Pentecostals and some Restorationists, styling themselves as restoring early Christian practice, reject the trinitarian concepts of the early church, and generally place no importance in the post-apostolic writings of the Church Fathers on the subject. (See below in the discussion on the Church Fathers.)

Eschatology

Kingdom of God

The apostles apparently believed that Jesus would soon return to establish the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The general term for this set of beliefs is parousia (or Second Coming).

Early Christians commonly believed that Christ would rule a thousand-year kingdom prior to the general resurrection, (a belief known as chiliasm or premillenialism).

Early Christians followed the Pharisaic precedent of believing in a physical resurrection of the dead. They believed that the saved received various divine rewards corresponding to their holiness. While all the saved would gain eternal life in Christ, not all of the saved would live in heaven.

Apologists defended the resurrection of the dead against pagan philosophers, who considered the soul worthy of perfection but not the body. Origen, however, promoted a Platonic viewpoint and denied the physical resurrection.

Cosmology

The ancient Jewish picture was of the sky as a firmament, a dome covering the earth. But the prevailing picture in early Christian times was that of the earth as a sphere with one or more other spheres, containing the stars, rotating around it. They sometimes described the souls of the dead waiting underground for the general resurrection. They described gehenna (roughly, hell) as a subterranean fire, see also Lake of Fire. In some Hellenic traditions, influential in the Alexandrian church, souls escaped the material world of the earth and returned to the spirit realm above.

Prayer for the dead

That early Christians prayed for the dead, believing that the dead were thereby benefitted, is attested from at least the second century, and celebration of the Eucharist for the dead is attested since at least the third century. Specific examples of belief in the communion of the living with the dead through prayer are found in many of the Church Fathers The Encyclopædia Britannica says that: "The well-attested early Christian practice of prayer for the dead ... was encouraged by the episode (rejected by Protestants as apocryphal) in which Judas Maccabeus (Jewish leader of the revolt against the tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes) makes atonement for the idolatry of his fallen soldiers by providing prayers and a monetary sin offering on their behalf (); by the apostle Paul's prayer for Onesiphorus (); and by the implication in that there may be forgiveness of sins in the world to come.

Hades

The Greek word "Hades", which, like the Hebrew word "sheol", is generally used of the abode where the dead are reckoned to be, appears several times in the New Testament. In the parable of the rich man and poor Lazarus the dead rich man "in Hades" speaks of being "tormented in this flame" and is said to be separated by a "great gulf" from Abraham in whose bosom Lazarus is said to be placed (). The word "Hades" was used in (as in the Septuagint) to translate the word "sheol" of the Hebrew text of the Psalm there quoted.

Early Church Fathers who wrote in Greek, such as Hippolytus of Rome in his book on Hades, continued to use the term "Hades". Early Christian writers in Latin also used either the Greek word "Hades" itself or employed as its equivalent the Latin word "infernus", the Roman word for the underworld, as Jerome did in his translation of the New Testament.

Angels and Satan

Early Christians understood angels to be active in supporting the church and Satan to be actively opposed to it. Hippolytus, for example, recounts angels physically scourging the first antipope to force him to repent. Christian writers commonly saw Satan (or Beelzebub, see Mark 3) as the author of heresies. In , Satan, rather than Abraham, is named as the father of those Jews who rejected Jesus. See also Rejection of Jesus.

The word "angel" is derived from Greek ἄγγελος, the basic meaning of which is "messenger". Visitations from the "angel of the LORD" in the Old Testament are taken by many to be pre-Incarnation manifestations of Christ. Accordingly, Justin Martyr spoke of Christ as "King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and captain, and stone, and a Son born, and first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory, and He is preached as having the everlasting kingdom". He interpreted as Christ the Angel who spoke with Abraham in , and argued for the divinity of Christ.

Orthodoxy and heterodoxy

Traditionally, orthodoxy and heresy have been viewed in relation to the "orthodoxy" as an authentic lineage of tradition. Other forms of Christianity were viewed as deviant streams of thought and therefore "heterodox", or heretical. This view was dominant until the publication of Walter Bauer's Rechtgläubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum ("Orthodoxy and heresy in ancient Christianity") in 1934. Bauer endeavored to rethink early Christianity historically, independent from the views of the church. He stated that the early church was very diverse and included many "heretical" groups that had an equal claim to apostolic tradition. Bauer interpreted the struggle between the orthodox and heterodox to be the "mainstream" Roman church struggling to attain dominance. He presented Edessa and Egypt as places where the "orthodoxy" of Rome had little influence during the second century. As he saw it, the theological thought of the Orient at the time would later be labeled "heresy". The response by modern scholars has been mixed. Some scholars clearly support Bauer's conclusions and others express concerns about his possible bias. More moderate responses have become prominent and Bauer's theory is generally accepted. However, modern scholars have critiqued and updated Bauer's model.

Divisions

Perhaps one of the most important discussions among scholars of early Christianity in the past century is to what extent it is appropriate to speak of "orthodoxy" and "heresy". Higher criticism drastically altered the previous perception that heresy was a very rare exception to the orthodoxy. Bauer was particularly influential in the reconsideration of the historical model. During the 1970s, increasing focus on the effect of social, political and economic circumstances on the formation of early Christianity occurred as Bauer's work found a wider audience. Some scholars argue against the increasing focus on heresies. A movement away from presuming the correctness or dominance of the orthodoxy is seen as understandable, in light of modern approaches. However, they feel that instead of an even and neutral approach to historical analysis that the heterodox sects are given an assumption of superiority over the orthodox movement. The current debate is vigorous and broad. While it is difficult to summarize all current views, general statements may be made, remembering that such broad strokes will have exceptions in specific cases.

Adoptionism

Many second century Christians believed that Jesus had been a man whom God had adopted as the Son. Adoptionists believed that Jesus had achieved divinity through moral perfection. This outlook was appears in The Shepherd of Hermas and, according to some scholars, in the epistles of Paul. The Ebionites and Paul of Samosata (200 to 275) held similar views. Adoptionism conflicted with the tradition that Jesus embodied the eternal Logos, as in the Gospel of John.

Adoptionist heresies would recur in Antioch (5th century), Spain (8th century), and France (12th century).

Arianism

Arianism was the most challenging heresy in the history of the Church. The initial version of the Nicene Creed, which largely defines orthodox Christianity, was drawn up in response to Arius's challenge.

In 318, an Alexandrian priest named Arius (c 280-336) began challenging his bishop, Alexander, regarding the nature of Christ. Arius taught that the Son was not co-eternal with the Father but had proceeded from Him, and that the Holy Spirit had proceeded from the Son. Arius's beliefs spread quickly among the clergy. Alexander called a council of Egyptian bishops and unfrocked Arius and his followers, but some other bishops sympathized with Arius. The controversy spread through the Greek East. Constantine, seeking political stability, played down differences between Arius and Alexander. He could not, however, get them to settle their differences quietly. Finally, Constantine called a universal Christian council to settle the controversy. Athanasius, representing Alexander, argued that if Father and Son were not one substance, polytheism would triumph. The creed of 325 was acceptable to Arius except for the phrase "same substance," referring to the Son and the Father; Arius would have accepted "similar substance." Arianism led to controversy centuries later with the filioque. Arian Visigoths refused to accept the Nicene Creed until it was changed to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds not just from the Father but also from the Son.

Ebionites

Ebionites ("poor ones") practiced Jewish Christianity, followed the Law, and believed Jesus to have been adopted as God's Son. They flourished in the early centuries of Christianity, especially east of the Jordan. They seem to have been ascetics, to have rejected Paul's epistles, and to have used one gospel of uncertain identity. In the second century, the Church denounced them as heretics. They waned but survived for five centuries as Syriac Christians.

Gnosticism

Early in the common era, several distinct religious sects, some of them Christian, adhered to an array of beliefs that would later be termed Gnostic. The most successful Christian Gnostic was the priest Valentinus (c. 100 - c. 160), who founded a Gnostic church and developed an elaborate cosmology. Gnostics considered the material world to be a prison created by a fallen or evil spirit, the god of the material world (called the demiurge). Gnostics identified the God of the Hebrew Bible as this demiurge. Secret knowledge (gnosis) was said to liberate one's soul to return to the true God in the realm of light. Valentinus and other Christian gnostics identified Jesus as the Savior, a spirit sent from the true God into the material world to liberate the souls trapped there.

While some elements that appear to be Gnostic are found in early Christian writing, orthodox Christianity labeled Gnosticism a heresy and rejected its dualistic cosmology and its vilification of the material world and the creator of the material. Gnosticism's stance was that the God of the Old Testament was not the true God. It was considered to be the demiurge and either fallen, as taught by Valentinus (c. 100 - c. 160) or evil, as taught by the Sethians and Ophites.

The Gospel of John, according to Stephen L Harris, both includes Gnostic elements and refutes Gnostic beliefs, presenting a dualistic universe of light and dark, spirit and matter, good and evil, much like the Gnostic accounts, but instead of escaping the material world, Jesus bridges the spiritual and physical worlds. Raymond E. Brown wrote that even though gnostics interpreted John to support their doctrines, the author didn't intend that. The epistles were written (whether by the author of the Gospel or someone in his circle) to argue against gnostic doctrines.

The Gospel of Thomas has some Gnostic elements but lacks the full Gnostic cosmology. The scene in John in which "doubting Thomas" ascertains that the resurrected Jesus is physical refutes the Gnostic idea that Jesus returned to spirit form after death. The written gospel draws on an earlier oral tradition associated with Thomas. Some scholars argue that the Gospel of John was meant to oppose the beliefs of that community.

Some believe that there were at least three distinct divisions within the Christian movement of the 1st century: the Jewish Christians (led by the Apostle James the Just, with Jesus's disciples, and their followers), Pauline Christians (followers of Paul of Tarsus) and Gnostic Christians. Others believe that Gnostic Christianity was a later development, some time around the middle or late second century, around the time of Valentinus. Gnosticism was in turn made up of many smaller groups, some of which did not claim any connection to Jesus Christ. In Mandaeist Gnosticism, Mandaeans maintain that Jesus was a mšiha kdaba or "false messiah" who perverted the teachings entrusted to him by John the Baptist. The word k(a)daba, however, derives from two roots in Mandaic: the first root, meaning "to lie," is the one traditionally ascribed to Jesus; the second, meaning "to write," might provide a second meaning, that of "book;" hence some Mandaeans, motivated perhaps by an ecumenical spirit, maintain that Jesus was not a "lying Messiah" but a "Book Messiah", the "book" in question presumably being the Christian Gospels. This however seems to be a folk etymology without support in the Mandaean texts. A modern view has argued that Marcionism is mistakenly reckoned among the Gnostics, and really represents a fourth interpretation of the significance of Jesus. Gnostics freely exchanged concepts and texts. It is considered likely that Valentinius was influenced by previous concepts such as Sophia, as much as he influenced others.

Marcionism

In 144, the Church in Rome expelled Marcion of Sinope. He thereupon set up his own separate ecclesiastical organization, later called Marcionism. Like the Gnostics, he promoted dualism. Unlike the Gnostics, however, he founded his beliefs not on secret knowledge (gnosis) but on the vast difference between what he saw as the "evil" deity of the Old Testament and the God of love of the New, on which he expounded in his Antithesis. Consequently, Marcionists were vehemently anti-Judaism in their beliefs. They rejected The Hebrew Gospel (see also Gospel of the Hebrews) and all the other Gospels with the exception of a short version of the Gospel of Luke, often called the Gospel of Marcion.

From the perspectives of Tertullian and Epiphanius (when the four gospels had largely canonical status, perhaps in reaction to the challenge created by Marcion), it appeared that Marcion rejected the non-Lukan gospels, however, in Marcion's time, it may be that the only gospel he was familiar with from Pontus was the gospel that would later be called Luke. It is also possible that Marcion's gospel was actually modified by his critics to become the gospel we know today as Luke, rather than the story from his critics that he changed a canonical gospel to get his version. For example: compare to ; did Marcion delete 5:39 from his Gospel or was it added later to counteract a Marcionist interpretation of 5:36-38? See also New Wine into Old Wineskins. One must keep in mind that we only know of Marcion through his critics and they considered him a major threat to the form of Christianity that they knew. John Knox (the modern writer, not to be confused with John Knox the Protestant Reformer) in Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon (ISBN 0-404-16183-9) was the first to propose that Marcion's Gospel may have preceded Luke's Gospel and Acts.

Marcion argued that Christianity should be solely based on Christian Love. He went so far as to say that Jesus’ mission was to overthrow Demiurge -- the fickle, cruel, despotic God of the Old Testament -- and replace Him with the Supreme God of Love whom Jesus came to reveal. Marcion was labeled a gnostic by Irenaeus. Irenaeus' labeled Marcion this because of Marcion expressing this core gnostic belief, that the creator God of the Jews and the Old Testament was the devil. This position, he said, was supported by the ten Epistles of Paul that Marcion also accepted. His writing had a profound effect upon the development of Christianity and the canon.

Montanism

About 156, Montanus launched a ministry of prophecy, criticizing Christians as increasingly worldly and bishops as increasingly autocratic. Traveling in his native Anatolia, he and two women preached a return to primitive Christian simplicity, prophecy, celibacy, and asceticism. Tertullian, having grown puritanical with age, embraced Montanism as a more outright application of Christ's teaching. Montanus's followers revered him as the Paraclete that Christ had promised, and he led his sect out into a field to meet the New Jerusalem. His sect spread across the Roman Empire, survived persecution, and relished martyrdom. The Church banned them as a heresy, and in the 6th century Justinian ordered the sect's extinction.

The sect's ecstasy, speaking in tongues, and other details are similar to those found in Pentecostalism.

Religious writing

Early Christians wrote many religious works, some of which were later canonized as the New Testament of today.

Oral tradition and first written works

Christian testimony was entirely oral for roughly twenty years after Jesus' death. People such as the Apostle Peter who, according to those letters of Paul, knew Jesus directly established oral traditions in various places, such as Jerusalem, Antioch, Caesarea, and Ephesus, each place gradually developing distinct characteristics. When they began to die off, Christians recorded the sayings in writing. If the hypothetical Q document existed, it was perhaps the first such record, written circa 50.

Paul's epistles

At about the same time, Paul of Tarsus also began writing (or dictating) letters ("epistles") to various churches that would later be considered scripture. Paul articulated the first Christian theology, that all people inherit Adam's guilt and can only be saved from death by the atoning death of the Son of God, Jesus' crucifixion.

Gospels and Acts

The gospel of Mark was written c. 65-70, possibly motivated by the First Jewish-Roman War. The gospel of Matthew was written c. 80-85 to convince a Jewish audience that Jesus was the expected Messiah (Christ) and a greater Moses. The gospel of Luke, together with Acts (see Luke-Acts), was written c.85-90, considered the most literate and artistic of the gospels. Finally, the gospel of John was written, portraying Jesus as an incarnation of the divine Word (Logos), who primarily taught about himself as a savior. All four gospels originally circulated anonymously, and they were attributed to Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John in the 2nd century. Various authors wrote further epistles and the Apocalypse of Saint John.

Later epistles

Epistles by other hands than Paul's circulated in the early church. Many of them, including one written as late as c 150, were eventually included in the New Testament canon. Many later epistles concern issues of church leadership, discipline, and disputes.

Revelation

Several apocalypses circulated in the early church, and one of them, the Revelation of John, was later included in the New Testament.

Defining Scripture

Debates about scripture were underway in the mid-second century, concurrent with a drastic increase of new scriptures, both Jewish and Christian. Debates regarding practice and belief gradually became reliant on the use of scripture. Similarly, in the third century a shift away from direct revelation as a source of authority occurred. "Scripture" still had a broad meaning and usually referred to the Septuagint. Beyond the Torah (the Law) and some of the earliest prophetic works (the Prophets), there was no universal agreement to a canon, but it was not debated much at first. By the mid-second century, tensions arose with the growing rift between Christianity and Judaism, leading eventually to the determination of a Jewish canon by the emerging rabbinic movement, though, even as of today, there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Jewish canon was set, see Development of the Jewish Bible canon for details.

Regardless, throughout the Jewish diaspora newer writings were still collected and the fluid Septuagint collection was the primary source of scripture for Christians. Many works under the names of known apostles, such as the Gospel of Thomas, were accorded scriptural status in at least some Christian circles. Apostolic writings, such as I Clement and the Epistle of Barnabas, were considered scripture even within the orthodoxy through the fifth century. A problem for scholars is that there is a lack of direct evidence on when Christians began accepting their own scriptures alongside the Septuagint. Well into the second century Christians held onto a strong preference for oral tradition as clearly demonstrated by writers of the time, such as Papias.

The acceptance of the Septuagint was generally uncontested. Later Jerome would express his preference for adhering strictly to the Jewish canon, but his view held little currency even in his own day. It was not until the Protestant Reformation that substantial numbers of Christians began to reject those books of the Septuagint which are not found in the Jewish canon.

Church fathers

Greek and Latin fathers of the early church defined and defended Christian doctrine. The term was originally used for bishops and, after the early church period, was applied to holy, orthodox writers whose opinions were given special weight.

Apostolic Fathers

The earliest Christian writings after the New Testament are a group of letters credited to the Apostolic Fathers. These include the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistles of Clement, as well as the Didache. Taken as a whole, the collection is notable for its literary simplicity, religious zeal and lack of Hellenistic philosophy or rhetoric.

Post-apostolic fathers

Post-apostolic fathers defined and defended Christian doctrine. The Apologists became prominent in the second century. This includes such notable figures as Justin Martyr (d. 165), Tatian (d. c. 185), and Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-211/216). They debated with prevalent philosophers of their day, defending and arguing for Christianity. They focused mainly on monotheism and their harshest words were used for ancient mythologies. Fathers such as Irenaeus affirmed the authority of the apostolic episcopacy (bishops).

Tradition

The church fathers themselves were conscious of being a part of an ongoing tradition, and frequently appealed to earlier writers to defend their opinions. As the centuries passed, the result was a growing body of religious literature which was customarily used for devotional purposes and theological argumentation. It is these church fathers who form our most important sources for understanding the development of early Christianity, and their importance to their immediate successors explains their ongoing importance today. At the Protestant Reformation, the Reformers frequently appealed to the church fathers in defense of their propositions, though they also showed a willingness to disagree with them. By contrast, the Restorationists later viewed the church fathers as entirely suspect, and appealed in support of their views either to supposed new revelations or else to the New Testament directly without reference to later Christianity.

Rules and creeds

In the 2nd century, Christians circulated formulas outlining essential Christian belief, called the Rule of Faith. They guided the understanding of scripture, and differentiated orthodox belief from heresy. While the rule, unlike a creed, appeared in various forms, Christians held that these forms were essentially the same, descended unchanged from the apostles.

Originally, candidates for baptism accepted a short formula of belief, with formulas varying in detail from one place to another. Starting at least in the 3rd century, three-part credal statements were part of some baptism formulas. These formulas became more uniform and nearly always three-part by the 4th century. The rule of faith and baptismal confessions influenced the Old Roman Creed, an earlier and shorter version of the Apostle's Creed.

The early Christian era ends with Emperor Constantine convening the Council of Nicaea, where the original version of the Nicene Creed was formulated.

Practices

From the writings of early Christians, historians have tried to piece together an understanding of various early Christian practices including worship services, customs and observances. Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr (100 - 165) described these practices.

Sacraments

Rituals that would later be defined as sacraments existed in the early church.

Baptism

Early Christian beliefs regarding baptism were variable. In the most usual form of early Christian baptism, the candidate stood in water and water was poured over the upper body. It is difficult to say when infant baptism became common in the early church. The theology of baptism attained precision in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Interpretation of the baptismal practices of the early church is important to those who, such as Baptists and Anabaptists, believe that infant baptism was a later development. Their belief that infant baptism was not practiced in the apostolic and immediate post-apostolic church, combined with the clear evidence of widespread infant baptism by the 3rd and 4th centuries, produces pressure to believe some sort of Great Apostasy happened. As a result, such groups find the later practice to be inadequate evidence of the practice of the earliest Christians, about which little clear historical evidence can be found on the question.

Eucharist

Early Christians blessed bread and wine as part of the Lord's supper. Where pagans would sacrifice animals for religious reasons, Christians would perform the eucharist, or unbloody sacrifice.

Holy orders

The early church featured two or three levels of clergy, overseers (bishops), elders (presbyters, sometimes interchangeable with bishops), and deacons (assistants). By the year 200, only bishops had the authority to ordain priests.

Imposition of hands

After baptism, the officiating apostle or priest would lay hands on the subject's head to introduce the Holy Spirit into the believer.

Penance

By the 3rd century, a system of public penance served as a "second baptism." The penitent Christian, either voluntarily or under threat of excommunication, would undergo penance of less or greater length, depending on the severity of the sin. Penance consisted of a rigorous course of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving, during which the penitent was excluded from the eucharist.

Worship

The first worship services were informal gatherings in homes of church members. Christians considered each other to be brothers and sisters, each contributing their respective gifts to the community. Gatherings featured readings, such as from Paul's epistles and later the gospels and other texts. The Lord's Supper comprised a communal meal with prayers in memory of Jesus. Services were known as agape feasts or love feasts.

Second century sources, such as the Didache, specify that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are for the baptized only. In his First Apology, a letter of defense written to Roman emperor, Antonius Pius, 161-180, Justin described a newly baptized member of the community sharing in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, which was restricted to the baptized.

Despite Ignatius' rejection of Judaizing, see above, Christianity continued many of the patterns of Judaism, adapting to Christian use synagogue liturgical worship, prayer, use of Sacred Scripture, a priesthood, a religious calendar commemorating on certain days each year certain events and/or beliefs, use of music in worship, giving material support to the religious leadership, and practices such as fasting and almsgiving and baptism.

Christians adopted as their Bible the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures known as the Septuagint and later also canonized the books of the New Testament. There are however many phrases which appear to be quotations and other statements of fact, in the early church fathers, which cannot be found in the Bible as we know it. For example in Clement's First Letter he states that Paul "reached the limits of the West", and also appears to quote a variant form of Ezek 33.

At worship, early Christians greeted each other with a holy kiss. Church leaders restricted the practice to keep the worshipers from taking pleasure in it, such as specifying that the lips be closed.

Many practices which later became characteristic of Christian worship had not yet developed. Singing was generally without instrumentation and was normally in unison. Many Christians had lost their lives rather than offer a mere pinch of incense to the emperor as to a god, and so the use of incense was strongly frowned upon even in Christian worship. These practices and others, such as the use of elaborate vestments and grand buildings, became popular only once the Peace of the Church changed the political situation and the growing properity of worshippers made them possible.

Church Community

Christians proclaimed a God of love who enjoined them to share a higher love with one another. Some interpreted the Old Testament as revealing primarily a God of justice, whereas the New Testament, particularly the letters of Paul and the Gospel of John, revealed a more loving God. Parallels are found in Pharisaic and Rabbinic Judaism. Paul of Tarsus is represented in as equating the Unknown God of the Greeks as revealed in the Christian God. Early Christian communities welcomed everyone, including slaves and women, who were generally shunned in Greco-Roman culture, but there were other exceptions, such as Epicurianism.

Organization

Christian groups were first organized loosely. In Paul's time, there were no precisely delineated functions for bishops, elders, and deacons. A Church hierarchy, however, seems to have developed by the early second century (see Pastoral Epistles, c 90 - 140). These structures were certainly formalized well before the end of the Early Christian period, which concluded with the legalization of Christianity in 313 and the holding of the First Council of Nicea in 325.

Some first-century Christian writings include reference to overseers ("bishops") and deacons, though these may have been informal leadership roles rather than formal positions. The Didache (dated by most scholars to the early second century),) speaks of "appointing for yourself bishops and deacons" and also speaks about teachers and prophets and false prophets. Bishops were defined as spiritual authorities over geographical areas.

By the end of the early Christian period, the church of the Roman Empire had hundreds of bishops, some of them (those of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and, it seems, the chief bishops of other provinces) holding some form of jurisdiction over others.

Jerusalem was an important church center before the city fell in 70 (see Council of Jerusalem). Rome was recognized as the first city of the church, Alexandria second, and then Antioch. Later, when the city of Constantinople was founded (330), this too became an important Christian centre within the empire, since the emperor resided there.

Monasticism

Christian monasticism started in Egypt. The first monks were hermits (eremetic monks). By the end of the early Christian era, Saint Pachomius was organizing his followers into a community and founding the tradition of monasticism in community (cenobitic monks).

Interaction with Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures

The land in which Christianity began and through which it spread had been both Hellenized (after Alexander the Great) and Romanized (with the rise of the Roman Empire). Early church writings were in Greek, even those originating in Rome, as Greek was the international language, lingua franca, of the day (similar to English in the early 21st century) and was widely spoken even in Rome.

Languages often presume features of the culture of their native speakers. For instance, the concept represented by the Greek word psyche, that of the soul, was often understood as immaterial in Greek writers, who also discussed whether the soul was immortal or not. The writers of the New Testament, like the Jewish translators of the Old Testament (Septuagint), used this word to render the Hebrew nephesh. Christianity and some forms of Judaism believe in bodily resurrection. Judaism later rejected the Septuagint because of its divergence from what had become the accepted Hebrew text and also because of the use of the Septuagint by Christians. Parallels to this exist in Christian history, where Greek, Latin or 16th century English are felt to be "proper" expressions of the scriptures, or of liturgy.

In early Christianity, Koine Greek, the most widely spoken language in the Roman empire of the time, the language also in which Alexandrian Jews such as Philo wrote their works, was naturally the language most used in Christian writings. (Other less widely used languages were not excluded: Latin, for instance, was used by writers such as Tertullian and Marcus Minucius Felix and Syriac by Syriac Christianity.) Regarding issues like polytheism, Christianity stood with Judaism against the background pagan culture, being staunchly monotheistic. Early Christianity thus found itself, like Judaism before it, in conflict with the prevailing Greco-Roman culture, where polytheistic theology was not simply an abstraction, but influenced social customs at many levels. Banquets in honour of gods were a common occurrence, legal codes and international diplomacy depended on gods as witnesses and the ultimate court of appeal on justice. Christians were considered atheists, because they refused to honour the pagan gods. In some cases, public opinion was against Christianity as antisocial (refusing to eat at pagan banquets) and immoral (unaccountable to the moral ethos couched in polytheistic terms). Tacitus recorded some of his impressions in 109: "a class hated for their abominations", "a most mischievous superstition", guilty of "hatred against mankind". Christians were also accused of "cannibalism" (perhaps a reference to the Eucharist) and "incest" (perhaps a reference to the biblical prohibition of marriage outside the faith).

Persecution

Christians were persecuted on an irregular basis in Rome. In his On the Life of the Caesars Suetonius (ca. 69/75 - after 130) wrote of the Emperor Claudius that, "since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome. The similarity between the name "Chrestus" and "Christus" (Latin for "Christ") and the tradition witnessed to in the Jewish Encylopedia that Claudius took this action because of dissensions "regarding the advent of the Messiah have led to the supposition that this is a reference to the presence of Christians among the Jews in Rome. The common Greek name of Chrestus may have been that of a Jewish agitator in Rome rather than a reference to Christ.Claudius's measure is dated to 49, and relates that, when Paul of Tarsus arrived in Corinth, probably in the following year, a Jewish Christian couple, Priscilla and Aquila, had arrived there shortly before (προσφάτως) as a result of Claudius's expulsion of "all Jews" from Rome, a phrase that suggests that the Emperor's action was directed against Jews in general, and not against the Christian Jews in particular.

In the year 64, the Christians, specified by this name in the account written later by the Roman historian Tacitus (died c. 117), were blamed by Nero as a scapegoat for the Great Fire of Rome in that year. He probably chose them as a new and secretive cult, mistrusted by the people: Tacitus called Christianity a "deadly superstition"; but he also noted that Nero's persecution of the Christians was so harsh that the inhabitants of Rome resented its cruelty.

Christians also suffered persecutions under the reigns of Domitian and Trajan. Persecutions continued intermittently through the second century. Even during periods between organized persecutions, Christians were still sporadically subject to trial and condemnation. After the late second century relative calm held in Rome. The reign of the Severi emperors is particularly noted as not only tolerant of the various religions in Rome, but actively interested in them. Alexander Severus is said to have had a shrine in his palace with an icon of Christ. The persecutions peaked with the Diocletian Persecution of 303-312.

Important cities

Early Christianity spread from city to city in the Hellenized Roman Empire and beyond.

Jerusalem

Alexandria

Established by Alexander the Great, Alexandria and its famous libraries were a center of Hellenistic learning. The Septuagint translation began there. It had a significant Jewish population, of which Philo of Alexandria is probably its most known author. It produced superior scripture and notable church fathers, such as Clement, Origen, and Athanasius. By the end of the era, Alexandria, Rome, and Antioch were accorded authority over nearby metropolitans. The Council of Nicaea (canon VI) affirmed Alexandria's traditional authority over Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis (North Africa).

Antioch

Antioch, the third most important city of the Roman Empire, was the site of an early church, reportedly where Christians were first so-called. The gospel of Matthew may well have been written here. The School of Antioch, founded in 270, was one of two major centers of early church learning. By the end of the era, it was the third most important holy see of Christendom, one of three to wield ecclesiastical authority over nearby metropolitans.

Rome

The seat of imperial power soon became a center of church authority, grew in power decade by decade, and became the head of the church. Paul's Epistle to the Romans (c 58) attests to a large Christian community here. The see was said to have been founded by Peter, see also Primacy of Simon Peter, who had invested it with apostolic authority. Church father Clement, bishop of Rome, asserted his see's apostolic authority. Not even by the end of the era were Rome and Alexandria, which by tradition held authority over sees outside their own province, referred to as patriarchates of the highest honor, and the Emperor Constantine's identification with the Christian church bolstered the bishop of Rome, according to the Donation of Constantine, which is a document forged seemingly four or five centuries later than the close of the early Christian era.

The first bishops spoke Greek, Victor I (c 189) was the first to speak Latin.

During the second century, Christians and semi-Christians of diverse views congregated in Rome. Conflicts in the church led to schism.

The Roman church survived various persecutions, and many clergy were martyred. When Rome burned in 64, Nero blamed the Christians and persecuted them. In the "Massacre of 258", under Valerian, the emperor killed a great many Christian clergy, including Pope Sixtus II and Antipope Novatian and Cyprian of Carthage. Persecutions finally ended in Rome and across the empire early in the 4th century.

Other significant places

Northwest Africa

Carthage gave the early church two Latin fathers, Tertullian and Cyprian. Hippo Regius had been the home of Numidian kings, it became a center of Christianity, and Augustine was its bishop. The deserts of Egypt were home to ascetic fathers, such as Pachomius and Anthony.

Northeast Africa

The Aksumite Empire of Ethiopia, with its capital at Axum, officially adopted Christianty as its state religion in 325. However, significant connections were made earlier, for example records the baptism of an Ethiopian eunuch and the Queen of Sheba is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.

Anatolia

The tradition of John the Apostle was strong in Anatolia (also called Asia, the near-east, modern Turkey). The gospel of John was likely written in Ephesus. The Apostle Paul was said to be from Tarsus and his missionary journeys were primarily in this region. See also Seven churches of Asia. Smyrna was home to Polycarp, the bishop who reportedly knew the Apostle John personally, and probably to Irenaeus. In the 2nd century, Anatolia was home to Quartodecimanism and Montanism, both later declared heretical by Proto-orthodox Christianity. In 325, Constantine convoked the first Christian ecumenical council in Nicaea and in 330 he moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople, see also Byzantine Empire.

Armenia

The Arsacid Dynasty of Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as a state religion, in either 301 or 314. The Armenian church was founded by Gregory the Illuminator.

Syria

The Syriac-speaking (see also Aramaic of Jesus) Christian community generated the Diatesseron, the four gospels as a continuous narrative. It might have been compiled in Edessa. The Didascalia Apostolorum, originally written in Greek early in the 3rd century, was likely composed by a Jewish convert in northern Syria. The Apostle Paul was said to have been converted on the Road to Damascus. Though it is a minority viewpoint, there are those who advocate that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic.

Assyria

The Assyrian Church of the East (in modern Iraq) was said to have been founded by Saint Thomas through Addai.

Iran

There was a Christian church in Iran from early times, but since they tended to side with Christian Byzantium, Shapur II ordered their execution in 341, but it is believed he was not entirely successful.

Legacy

In the fourth century, Constantine converted to Christianity and legalized it, showing it personal favour (see Constantine I and Christianity for details). He convened the first of the ecumenical councils at Nicea, where the church dogmatically defined the Trinity. Of the next six ecumenical councils, the First Council of Constantinople further defined the Trinity and the Council of Ephesus affirmed Mary as the Mother of God. They anathematized various heresies, and declared heretical some early Christian writings, as when the Second Council of Constantinople condemned certain tenets of Origen.

In modern times, several Christian denominations intentionally follow what they believe to be early Christian practices, such as believer's baptism, Sabbath in Christianity, and Passover (Christian holiday) (see also Christian Torah-submission), in place of established Christian traditions. These Restorationist sects consider themselves to be restoring the authentic practices of the early Christian era, before what they call the "Great Apostasy."

Since the 19th century, historians have learned much more about the early Christian community. Major texts, such as the Didache (in second-millennium copies) and the Gospel of Thomas (in two manuscripts dated as early as about 200 and 340), have been rediscovered in the last 200 years.

Restorationism

In the 19th century, chiefly in America, a movement known as Restorationism arose, chiefly in North America, which claimed to restore "original Christianity." With few exceptions, the practices Restorationists claimed to be restoring were not straightforward reconstructions of the pre-Nicene Christianity described here, but were instead imaginative reconstructions of primitive Christianity, about which there is little historical record apart from the New Testament. In some cases, as with the Latter-Day Saints the restoration was based upon previously unknown scriptural writings.

Baptists and Anabaptists and Oneness Pentecostalism all claim the existence of a hidden lineage of believers throughout history, but there is little evidence to support their claims.

In general, restorationists do not proceed by careful historical analysis of pre-Nicene Christianity. Instead, they work forward from the New Testament, reconstructing as best they can the practices of the apostolic and post-apostolic church without reference to later developments. In part, this is because the doctrine of a Great Apostasy renders, in their mind, the later pre-Nicene Church as corrupted.

References

Berard, Wayne Daniel. When Christians Were Jews (That Is, Now). Cowley Publications (2006). ISBN 1561012807.
Boatwright, Mary Taliaferro & Gargola, Daniel J & Talbert, Richard John Alexander. The Romans: From Village to Empire. Oxford University Press (2004). ISBN 0195118758.
Dauphin, C. "De l'Église de la circoncision à l'Église de la gentilité – sur une nouvelle voie hors de l'impasse". Studium Biblicum Franciscanum. Liber Annuus XLIII (1993).
Dunn, James D.G. Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135. Pp 33-34. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing (1999). ISBN 0802844987.
Ehrman, Bart D. Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. HarperCollins (2005). ISBN 0060738170.
Esler, Phillip F. The Early Christian World. Routledge (2004). ISBN 0415333121.
Harris, Stephen L. Understanding the Bible. Mayfield (1985). ISBN 087484696X.
Hunt, Emily Jane. Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian. Routledge (2003). ISBN 0415304059.
Keck, Leander E. Paul and His Letters. Fortress Press (1988). ISBN 0800623401.
Pelikan, Jaroslav Jan. The Christian Tradition: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). University of Chicago Press (1975). ISBN 0226653714.
Pritz, Ray A., Nazarene Jewish Christianity From the End of the New Testament Period Until Its Disappearance in the Fourth Century. Magnes Press - E.J. Brill, Jerusalem - Leiden (1988).
Richardson, Cyril Charles. Early Christian Fathers. Westminster John Knox Press (1953). ISBN 0664227473.
Stark, Rodney.The Rise of Christianity. Harper Collins Pbk. Ed edition 1997. ISBN 0060677015
Stambaugh, John E. & Balch, David L. The New Testament in Its Social Environment. John Knox Press (1986). ISBN 0664250122.
Tabor, James D. "Ancient Judaism: Nazarenes and Ebionites", The Jewish Roman World of Jesus. Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (1998).
Taylor, Joan E. Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins. Oxford University Press (1993). ISBN 0198147856.
Thiede, Carsten Peter. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity. Palgrabe Macmillan (2003). ISBN 1403961433.
White, L. Michael. From Jesus to Christianity. HarperCollins (2004). ISBN 0060526556.
Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God. Fortress Press (1992). ISBN 0800626818.
Wylen, Stephen M. The Jews in the Time of Jesus: An Introduction. Paulist Press (1995). ISBN 0809136104.

Footnotes

External links

Early Christians
Early Christian Writings
Christian Classics Ethereal Library
Early Church Texts A site with a growing number of original language patristic texts and translations, together with an extensive set of links to online resources about the Early Church.
Catholic Encyclopedia: The Fathers of the Church
PBS Frontline: The First Christians
"The Old Testament of the Early Church" Revisited, Albert C. Sundberg, Jr.
The Jewish Roman World of Jesus
From the Jesus-people to Early Christianity - 30 - 110 AD
First Christians and Rome

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 22:31:03 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation