Highlights of Church History
James T. Hickman
INTRODUCTION
Whether we are talking about the
history of Christianity, church history, or the story of the Christian peoples
in the world, we need to know who we are talking about. What is the church, who are these Christians?
I am going to offer a broad, working
definition.
The church is that entity made up of
men and women who claim to embrace a conviction that Jesus Christ is the ground
for understanding God’s character and purposes for the world, for insight into
how their lives should be live, and for
their hope for salvation (which includes a fulfilling live now and well-being
in the world to come.)
This definition is
not especially biblical (The church is “the body of Christ.”) nor is it
especially theological (The church is where “the word of God is truly preached
and the sacraments are rightly administered.”)
It is a limited definition: My
Baptist friends would observe I’ve said nothing about baptism, my Pentecostal
friends would point out I’ve said nothing about the role of the Spirit, my
Episcopal friends would be concerned that I’ve not mentioned apostolic
succession, and …you get the point. My
goal is to offer a definition that will allow us to drop into any period within
the last two thousand years and be able to identify the church.
That’s important
for several reasons but chiefly because throughout some important periods of
church history, the church looked somewhat different than it did today. Still, if we look closely we will find that
strange looking entity did fit the parameters of the definition I’ve
given. Second, while I might be able to
apply several labels to myself—Protestant, Baptist, Evangelical—I will be
cheating myself if I spend all my time scouring church history looking only for
people who look like me.
With that in mind,
let’s begin a two-thousand year journey that we will have to take at a very
rapid pace.
Jesus and the Church
Strangely, we have
to begin with the question “Did Jesus intend to leave behind a church?”
It might surprise
you that quite a number of people have answered “No” to that question. Generally they have said that Jesus was a
moral teacher who intended to leave behind an ethical ideal that was not tied
to any religious structure. Only later
were his teachings complicated by imaginative thinkers like Paul. As a result this simple teacher of morality
was transformed into an Incarnate Deity whose death supposedly deals with
humanity’s greatest problem.
Forgetting for the
moment the historical problems in this approach, to say that Jesus never
intended to build a church has always suggested that somehow the whole thing
got away from him. That doesn’t seem
likely. Jesus seems to have always
planned to leave behind a community, a fellowship, a people who would carry on
his work.
But, conceding he
intended to leave behind a church, did he intend that church to be a massive
enterprise of boards, committees, hierarchies of ministry; and, in some cases,
lobbyists in the highest places in the government? Did he want there to be a time when the word
“church” might be mentioned and people would first think of a building and only
later, perhaps with prompting, think of a band of people? Whatever the ultimate answer to that
question might be, we know the church has always struggled to maintain a
healthy balance between spirit and structure, form and freedom, tradition and
innovation. You’ll recognize that as one
of what I’ve called the axioms for the study of church history. We won’t take the time to look at them but
keep them in mind as “hooks” to hang what we learn on; or as organizing
principles for examining the course of church history.
Axioms for the Study of Church
History: All churches exist in a
culture. That the church and the culture
will influence each other is inevitable; whether that culture has the greater
influence on the church or the church has the greater influence on the culture
will depend upon the spiritual vitality of the church. To understand how this dynamic works out I’d
like to offer what I am calling “axioms for the study of church history.” These
are some general principles to keep in mind while studying the history of the
church or the history of Christians in society.
1. The church suffers recurring bouts of
amnesia.
2. No matter how appealing the idea may seem,
when the church and the state are wed the marriage is disastrous.
3. The church must always struggle to maintain a
healthy balance between spirit and structure, form and freedom, tradition and
innovation.
4. Throughout the church’s history, God has used
surprising individuals, regardless of their gender or social, economic,
educational, and national backgrounds to advance the Kingdom.
5. On balance, society has been more blessed
than cursed by the church’s presence.
6. The church consists of saints who sometimes
fail to demonstrate saintliness.
7. No matter how compelling the evidence, it is
always too soon to publish the church’s obituary.
The primitive
church, that church that existed immediately following the Pentecost described
in Acts 2, was dynamic and filled with a fresh flush of enthusiasm. Several of the core leaders had followed
Jesus during his earthly ministry and many others had heard him teach, seen one
of his miracles, and may have been among the hundreds who saw him after the
resurrection (cf I Cor 15:6). These were
the evangelists who, in the words of the Authorized Version, “turned the world
upside down.” This dynamism would
continue but as the church entered the second and third generation, there began
to be subtle changes that would have lasting impact.
Overview of the
Christian Centuries:
Who were these people, the Christians?
If we were to look
into a service of this early church I think we would have some surprises. We won’t have time to examine these matters
in detail but it might be worth it if you were to pursue further study on your
own.
--They were
people whose most rapid growth took place when they still met in homes. That might not be surprising to anyone from
Xenos but I mention it just in case.
While there may have been hundreds or even thousands of Christians in
some metropolitan areas and while they may have attempted to meet together
occasionally, it seems the typical church service still involved smaller
groups.
Dedicated church
buildings would not be built until toward the end of the third century. However, one home has been found in Capernaum
that shows signs of having been modified late in the first century to
accommodate gatherings. Archaeologists
believe this was the meeting place of an early Christian congregation.[1] This may have been an occasion when a
believer was wealthy enough to make a home available to the local congregation
as a meeting place. But this was rare. Not until well into the third century were
church buildings became commonplace.
Such homes were
one of the most valuable venues for evangelism.
They offered an intimacy that the marketplace did not. Christians could quietly explain the gospel
to those unfamiliar with it and answer their questions. The second-century pagan philosopher Celsus
complained that used their homes to snare the unwary into their religion; he
was especially miffed that “it was in private houses that the wool workers and
cobblers, the laundry workers and yokels whom he so profoundly despised did
their proselytizing.”[2]
As more churches
were built, some Christian leaders began to show contempt for those believer
who met in homes or other venues. Fourth
century missionary Ulfilas worked for forty years trying to bring the gospel to
the Goths in what is now Romania. He
worked tirelessly among these warlike, wandering people, even translating the
Bible into their language. Because the
Goths were nomadic, Ulfilas and his missionary successors traveled with them, sometimes
holding services from a wagon. This
prompted Ambrose, the famous bishop from Milan who had such influence on
Augustine to sneer sarcastically,
“Those who had formerly used wagons for dwellings now use a wagon for a
church.”[3] Like many of their Christian ancestors,
these missionaries were adaptable.
Besides they probably knew that if they stood on the back of a wagon and
talked about God’s love, the Goths might listen; if they built a gilded
cathedral, the Goths would likely rob it.
Eventually, the church-building
would replace the home as the primary
place for evangelism and even Bible teaching.
Perhaps, church leaders felt it was easier to control what was being
said if it could only be said in confines of the church.
--They were a
people who treated slaves as human and allowed
women in places of leadership.
The tiny Letter to
Philemon suggests something of the social impact the gospel made in the ancient
world. Paul wrote the letter to help
smooth the way for the newly-converted Onesimus, a runaway slave, to return to
his master Philemon, Paul’s friend and co-worker. In his effort encourage compassion rather
than harshness, Paul reminded Philemon of the new relationship which now
existed with Onesimus. He wrote,
“Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you
might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than
a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both
in the flesh and in the Lord.”[4] The attitude implicit in these words was
revolutionary. Although Paul never
attacked the institution of slavery, he laid the groundwork for its eventual
abolition wherever Christians took the gospel seriously. Paul’s attitude toward women was hardly less
revolutionary.
As already suggested,
persons of all ranks had a place in the church.
Someone who spent the day weaving baskets could spend the evening
teaching others about the Kingdom of God.
Christians recognized the validity of slave marriages, something the
Romans didn’t do. Two of the most
famous martyrs (both slaves) would show
that the depth of commitment and spiritual courage had nothing to do with
social rank.
In time, some
Christians felt it was wise to seek a master’s permission before baptizing a
slave but this might have been an effort to protect the slave rather than an act of
deferring to the master.
But slaves weren’t
the only ones who found a new life in the church.
In Romans 16 alone
Paul listed seven women by name. Six of
these Paul commends for their work on behalf of the gospel. One he describes as a deacon, another as an
apostle. For some years into the
earliest period of church history we will see women playing important roles in
the life of the church.
If this comes as a
surprise, it may be the result of hearing those who focus on only a few verses
where seems to restrict the role of women in the church, verses read in
isolation from the whole of his writings.
This practice leads to a misreading of Paul’s intent as Ivor Davidson
suggests.
Christian arguments limiting the rights and opportunities of
women to lead would certainly be presented over subsequent generations, and
many of these would be based one-sidedly upon selected aspects of the Pastoral
Epistles’ teachings, taken in isolation from the overall testimony of early
Christian behavior. The consequences of
such reasoning would be both tragic and far-reaching for the Christian churches
and undoubtedly carried much Christian moralizing some distance from the ministry
of Jesus himself and from some of the practices of his earliest followers. Although it is easy to see how excessively
negative assessments of the place of women could have been legitimized by
appeals to the language of the Pastoral letters, there is no good reason
why the apparent implications of a few verses in these documents should ever
have overridden the stronger witness of the apostolic churches as a whole that
women and men initially acted as co-workers in the gospel of Christ.[5]
Once again, Rodney
Stark believes the new freedom given to women accounts for some of
Christianity’s appeal to that gender, even if becoming believers meant trouble
with their husbands and the civil authorities.
Women often worked
alongside the Irish missionaries who did so much to evangelize northwestern
Europe. There is even some evidence
suggesting that Celtic missionary teams were occasionally led by women.
Still, very early
on, the attitudes toward women began to change.
Even though Tertullian was married and had a high regard for Christian
marriage, he still said things that seemed to indicate both a disdain and
distrust of women. Of women he
complained, “You destroyed so easily God’s image (man).” He said women are the “devil’s gateway.” Upon hearing that some women worked
side-by-side with certain missionaries, one church leader said it was
impossible for men and women to work together without giving way to carnal
temptation.
While the view may
not have been universal, within a few centuries the attitude was that women
were spiritually dangerous and getting involved with one would knock your
pilgrimage off course.
Later on, the
Waldensians of the 12th century—a group many historians consider to
be the forerunners to the Protestants, if not the first Protestants—allowed
their women to preach. The practice was
abandoned only when inquisitors began using it to identify the groups.
But the
Waldensians were an exception. By the 12th
century the church’s attitude was strangely paradoxical. Though Mary and other female saints were
venerated, many who shaped the church’s thinking believed women were somehow
morally suspect; their very presence posed a great impediment to living the
holy life.
They were
people with a terrible reputation: They
loved one another.
It was the
irascible Tertullian who reported the words (complete with his editorial
comments) supposedly said by the opponents of Christianity: "Look,"
they say, "how they love one another" (for they themselves hate one
another); "and how they are ready to die for each other" (for they
themselves are readier to kill each other).”
As we’ll see, the
Christian talk of loving one another led civil leaders some to suspect them of
immorality. But, in time, the man and
woman on the streets realized what they meant when they talked about love and
stopped believing the propaganda.
Thanks to Rodney
Stark and other historians we’ve all heard how the early Christians stunned
their neighbors by their behavior. When
plague visited a city and the pagans loaded their wagons and headed out of
town, the Christians rolled up their sleeves and got to work. They cared for the sick (both their own and
the pagan sick) and refused to simply throw the dead onto a heap. Instead, they respectfully buried them.
In the mid-fourth
century, Basil, one of the Cappadocians, recognized a problem in his
community—a problem that existed everywhere for that matter. There were no facilities to care for the poor
and the sick. They simply died alone.
Historian Peter
Brown has said that Christian leaders “invented the poor.” By that he meant that prior to the coming of
the church, the poor were invisible. No
one cared for them. The coming of the
church changed that. In the early days,
Christians would share what they had from their own tables. Then, when the Christians experienced new
freedom, some churches built their own bakeries.
Basil went a step further and proposed the
creation of what we would call hospitals.
The new institution Basil proposed had some features like hospitals
today; patients would stay there during their treatment and the hospitals
became training schools for physicians.
Unlike, modern hospitals, the patients were not charged. Nothing like it in the pagan world had ever
existed.
A new attitude
toward illness developed: It was no
longer viewed as caused by sin. A new
view of physicians resulted: They were
treated with a new respect because they were receiving better education and
experience.[6]
Always in danger
of amnesia, Christians would forget to love but usually there were voices like
Basil’s to recall them to that ideal.
--They were
people who maintained commitment in the face of intense pressure. In the mid 60s of the first century, Emperor
Nero turned his attention to the Christians, hoping to root them out and
destroy them. In some ways this was a
diversionary tactic. You’ve probably
heard the story: A great fire swept
through and destroyed much of the city, including Nero’s palace. Because Nero was planning to build a larger,
grander palace, many Romans believed he had started the fire. While he had a fairly healthy ego, no one
really knows if he did set the fire but we do know he took the opportunity to
blame the Christians.
During the
persecution that ensued Peter and Paul probably met their deaths (though some
Bible scholars believe it was a few years earlier). It was during this persecution that Nero was
said to have had Christians crucified in his gardens and then had their bodies
burned to provide illumination for his entertainments.
We can understand
if Nero and other Romans believed that striking out at leaders like Peter and
Paul would be the death-knell for the new religion. They couldn’t know that, as T R Glover said,
“The day would come when men would name their sons Paul and their dogs Nero.”
Still, as the
first century came to a close the animosity and contempt for the Christians
increased, leading to greater persecution.
There were several reasons for this:
As time passed, it
became clearer that the new religion was just that “new.” It was not a form of Judaism. The Jewish religion had been long tolerated
in the empire; it was legal to be a Jew, odd as that might make a person. If these new “Christians” weren’t Jews, they
weren’t Jewish.
At times, Christians
may have found it advantageous to emphasize that they weren’t Jews, especially
since the revolt that led to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and the
second revolt under Bar Kokhba in AD 132-135.
The Jews
themselves seem to have helped the authorities toward this conclusion. For decades, the synagogue services included
the praying of Eighteen Benedictions.
Toward the end of the first century, at least in Palestine, a nineteenth
benediction was added. This so-called
Benediction asked God to curse “the Galileans,” the term used for the
Christians.
Near the beginning
of the third century, Tertullian (c160-225) would say “The synagogues of the
Jews are the fountain of persecution.”
That’s doubtless overstating the case since Jews suffered periodic
persecution as well and there appears to have been some areas where Jews and
Christians lived side by side in relative peace. Yet, there was undoubted ill feeling on both
sides throughout much subsequent history.
Because Christians were often in the position of greater power, Jews
were frequently the brunt of violence, either instigated by the state or
perpetrated while the state turned a blind-eye.
Sadly, a tolerance for anti-Semitism is a dark blot on the church’s
story.
In the end, the
Romans were capable of coming up with their own reason to persecute the
Christians. The various motives for
persecuting the Christians included the following:
·
The Romans generally preferred the old over the
new; Christianity was new and potentially disruptive.
·
The Romans saw the Christians as “atheists.”
Believing in only one God was generally believed to run the risk of offending
the gods. One Christian writer would
eventually complain that whenever the Tiber flooded or the Nile didn’t, the
outcry was “Kill the Christians.”
·
The Romans saw the Christians as
“anti-social.” They did not participate
in the Roman festivals, attend the spectacles, or the theater—events all
associated with idolatry—so they hated their neighbors.
·
The Romans saw the Christians as “immoral.” They often spoke of loving one another. Male and female believers called each other
“brother and sister,” yet they married—behavior perceived as endorsing incest. The charge of immorality occasionally
included the charge of cannibalism, since the Christians spoke of eating and
drinking the body and blood of Christ.
·
There were other reasons for the attacks on
Christians. Some were economic since
those who sold idols, potions, etc had much to lose if their customers became
Christians. Some were social since the
Christians seemed to have no regard for social status, a prominent citizen and
a lowly slave might be baptized in the same water; wives might become believers
without consulting their husbands. Christians threatened to disrupt society.
We can’t see these
motives behind every persecution but they reflect attitudes that fed the
ill-will toward the Christians.
We don’t have time
to look at the details of the persecution of the church but you should know it
came in waves. While it was seldom
really safe to be a Christian, there were times when it was less hazardous than
others. Persecution intensified during
certain periods and under the reigns of certain emperors. The most intense periods of persecution were:
THE FIRST WAVE (c95-156)
--Sometimes called
the Domitian Persecutions after the emperor of that name but exaggerates his
role. The persecution began before his
reign (81-96) and lasted long afterwards.
While Emperor Hadrian (117-138) had no qualms about persecuting
Christians, he insisted actions against them be lawful and not the results of
mob violence.
--A letter written
by Governor Pliny to Emperor Trajan about 112 reveals the procedure for
interrogating Christians. They were
asked if they were indeed Christians, upon an affirmative confession, they were
to invoke the gods, offer wine and incense to the image of the emperor, and
curse Christ (this was not always required since there was no objection to
adding Christ to the list of other gods).
--Means of
execution varied. Some were burned, some
were thrown to the beasts in the arena, and some were slain by gladiators.
--The better known
martyrs during this period include Ignatius, bishop of Syrian Antioch (115 in
Rome) and Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was reputed to have been a disciple
of John. In 156, Polycarp was placed on
trial for his faith. In response to
repeated demands that he renounce Christ, he replied, “Eighty-six years I have
served Him, and He has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my Saviour
and King?” Following this refusal, he
was burned at the stake. Public response
to his death was strong and there was a temporary respite from persecution;
Emperor Antonine even warned the authorities in the eastern provinces to not
allow riotous attacks on Christians to replace legal action.
--A couple decades
later, in 177, there was an outbreak of persecution against Christians in Gaul,
especially at Lyon. The targets of this
persecution included the very old (the 90-year-old bishop, Pothinus) and the
very young (the 14-year-old boy Ponticus).
The most famous of these martyrs was Blandina, a young slave-girl whose
courage under torture inspired others.
Interestingly, some of those killed during this persecution were Roman
citizens. This raised legal issues. In response to questions, Emperor Marcus said
Christians who were Roman citizens should be beheaded but others could be put
to death by torture.
--After outbreaks
of persecution in North Africa, in 202, a half-century period of relative peace
for the church began. The persecution in
North Africa produced two of the most famous martyrs, Perpetua and
Felicitas. These two Christian women,
one a 22-year-old aristocrat, the other a slave, were executed in
Carthage. They died hand-in-hand, facing
the beasts and reminding the world of the social impact of the Christian
gospel.
THE SECOND WAVE 250-260
--Generally known
as the Decian Persecutions, after Emperor Decius (249-251) who initiated the
campaign.
--Focus of the
attacks were the bishops and other leaders of the church. Effort was
made to cause the common Christians to give up their faith. During the period of peace there had been a
time of growth and many new believers were shocked by the sudden turn of
events. Many would relent and offer
sacrifices to the gods; still, many remained faithful. Among those killed during this persecution
was Origen, the Bible scholar from Caesarea.
--This persecution
saw a new phenomenon. Pagans often
helped their Christian neighbors escape the officials. Again, there followed a period of relative
peace, lasting about forty years.
THE FINAL WAVE 303-313
--Began under
Emperor Diocletian who did not immediately attack the Christians in the empire,
perhaps because both his wife and daughter appear to have been Christians—though
not baptized. Threats on the eastern
frontier, led Diocletian, influenced by his son-in-law Glarius who was also a
kind of vice-emperor, to renew attacks on the church. The treat may have seemed greater since the
Kingdom of Armenia was officially Christian.
--During this
persecution Christian leaders were targeted and, in a new feature, Christian
churches were burned and copies of the Scripture were ordered destroyed. All Christians were commanded to offer
sacrifices to the state gods or face death.
The persecution was more intense in some places than others but it was
intended to be universal (Diocletian’s wife and daughter were compelled to
sacrifice). Anti-Christian propaganda
included the so-called Acts of Pilate,
a document claiming to present the origins of Christianity as a scandalous
cult. Diocletian’s successor Maximin II
tried to create a universal “church of paganism” to compete with Christianity
but failed.
When the
authorities began to see they were failing to stop the church, they rescinded
some of their edicts against Christians.
--F F Bruce
comments on this period: “Not only was
there a tendency, as fifty years earlier, for pagans to protect their Christian
neighbors; even the officials in charge of the public sacrifices frequently
turned a blind eye on refusals to conform.
As crowds queued up to file past the altar and throw a pinc of incense
on it, the officials might easily fail to notice an odd individual who omitted
to perform the rite; if some zealous spirit in the queue though it their
Christian duty to testify aloud againd this public idolatry, they might be
knocked on the head and hustled along with as much expedition as possible.”
--So, even the
pagans had come to see the lies against the Christians for what they were,
misrepresentations of the Christian character and lifestyle. As Glover writes, the Christians triumphed
over their enemies because they “outlived” them.
--In 312, General
Constantine won a great victory at Milvian Bridge near Rome, becoming the ruler
of the western empire. The next year, he
and Licinius, the eastern ruler, met at Milan and issued an edict of toleration
for all religions. The Edict of Milan
meant Christian leaders could emerge from hiding and Christian property would
be returned to the Christians, and their churches would be rebuild. To quote Bruce: “the last round between
Christianity and Roman paganism had been the most desperate of all; but in
ended with the acknowledgement that Christianity had won.”
This step would
lead to others that would radically change the life of the church.
Observations on the Age of Martyrs
As with many
things associated with the church, there were both positive and negative
consequences.
1 The church
proved its capacity to maintain its priorities in the midst of difficult
times. The church continued to preach
and grow during the persecutions. While
Tertullian’s observation about
“the blood of the martyrs” being the “seed of the church” is over optimistic, the church did not stop being the church.
“the blood of the martyrs” being the “seed of the church” is over optimistic, the church did not stop being the church.
2 The age of the
martyrs did produce some of the church’s great heroes. The courage of martyrs like Polycarp and
Blandina did inspire other Christians and, occasionally, inspired those on the
threshold of faith to commit, even if it meant their own deaths. In one sense, they were demonstrating the
reality of the faith they proclaimed.
They were true martyrs, “witnesses.”
3 On the negative
side, the age of martyrs was sometimes produced those who courted martyrdom. Ignatius in his several letters to the
churches in the communities he would be visiting on his way to Rome begged the
Christians not to interfere with his desire to suffer the same fate as
Christ. While this was not courting
martyrdom, it was an attitude that would inspire those who deliberately sought
to provoke the government and to suffer death.
According to what may have been a legend, teenaged Origen’s mother hid
his clothes to prevent him from chasing after those taking his father away so
he could die also. (Years later he would
die as a martyr.) Eventually the church
would have to censure those who exhibited such behavior and declare that there
was no shame or betrayal in escape if it could be made without denying the
faith.
4 Without
discounting the tremendous devotion of the martyrs, the adulation they later
received tended to cause some to believe that suffering for the faith was of
greater spiritual significance than living faithfully in “ordinary”
circumstances. In other words, the
witness of a Christian who died in the arena was more valuable than the witness
of a Christian who spends a lifetime working with integrity in a stall in the
marketplace. As a consequence, the
heritage of the martyrs led those who really wanted to live as Christians to
believe they had to become such spiritual athletes themselves. But how?
Historically, the end of persecution meant the end of martyrs; this
would lead to the emergence of hermits and subsequently to monasticism.
--They were
people who showed up in surprising
places. Romans 16 mentions Phoebe “a
deaconess” from Cenchreae. Cenchreae was
a village outside Corinth. Theodoret
(c393-458) cited this as evidence of Christianity reaching the rural areas as
well as the urban.
The Book of Acts
focuses primarily on the westward expansion of Christianity; we know the church
also travelled eastward. Coptic
Christians believe Mark brought the gospel to Egypt, Christians in Spain
believe that country was first evangelized by James, and some Indian Christians
claim Thomas preached the gospel there.
It’s unlikely these legends are true but the faith did spread far and
rapidly. The church existed in Rome
before either Peter or Paul preached there.
But it wasn’t just
the breadth of their evangelism; it was the depth that was remarkable. While Christianity made its greatest headway
among the working classes, it reached others as well. During the so-called Domitian persecutions,
one Christian executed was Flavius Clemens.[7] He was a Roman consul and married to the
emperor’s niece, Flavia Domitilla. While
Flavius was executed, Flavia was exiled.
We don’t know what happened to their two sons, whom Domitian had
designated as his heirs. This propted
Harnack to write: “What a change! Between fifty and sixty years after
Christianity reached Rome, a [grand]daughter of the Emperor embraces the faith,
and thirty years after the fearful persecutions of Nero, the presumptive heirs
to the throne were brought up in a Christian house.”[8]
Graffiti dating
from the third century and found on the wall of the quarters of the imperial
page boys in Rome suggests at least one of the boys was a Christian.
Michael Green
suggests an important reason the earliest Christians would take their faith so far
afield. He points out that the gospel
was spread by “informal evangelists,” not professional clergy. It was a mindset very different than what
would be found in later centuries. This
meant the gospel could be spread by those we would call blue-collar and by
those we would call housewives.
If there was no distinction in the early church between
full-time ministers and laymen in this responsibility to spread the gospel by
ever means possible, there was equally no distinction between sexes in the
matter. It was axiomatic that every
Christian was called to be a witness to Christ, not only by life but by
lip. Everyone was to be an apologist, at
least to the extent of being ready to give a good account of the hope that was
within them. And this emphatically
included women. They had a very large
part to play in the advance of Christianity.[9]
There is no hard
evidence for some of the more remarkable claims about the outreach of the early
church. Even though the story of Thomas
taking the gospel to India is some 1400 years old, it’s impossible to prove
it. Still, it seems as if Christianity
had reached well beyond Jerusalem.
·
Christianity came to Gaul (France) sometime near
the middle of the second century; the region appears to have been evangelized by
Christians from Asia Minor.
·
Carthage (now part of Tunisia but then capitol
of the Roman province of Africa) had a Christian community well before 200.
·
Christianity had reached Germany and Egypt by
the end of the second century.
·
Christians were in Britain by the early
200s. It’s conjectured that the faith
may have been brought to the island by
·
Armenia was the first nation to officially
embrace Christianity when King Tiridates converted to Christianity in 301.
·
By the time Constantine became emperor, an estimated
10 to 15% of the population within the Empire had embraced Christianity and the
Bible was available in 10 different languages.
Rodney Stark
estimates that from Pentecost to the beginning of the Fourth Century, the
church had grown at the rate of about 4.0% annually.
This growth in
what might be surprising directions would continue. In the year 800, there were more Christians
east of Damascus than west of that ancient city.
While missionary
outreach went on throughout the period, I can really only mention two.
The first is a RC
saint who is popular with almost American even if they’re not Irish or RC. Sometimes he’s admired by Protestants,
especially if they aren’t teetotalers.
But this saint was neither Irish nor Roman Catholic.
Patrick was raised
on the west coast of what would become England; he was the son of a prosperous
Christian deacon. In 406, when he was
about sixteen, Patrick was kidnapped by Irish pirates and sold as a slave. Laboring as a shepherd, his devotion to God
grew deeper; then after six years God seemed to direct him to flee to a port
town where a ship waited to take him to the Continent. Eventually he travelled back to Britain.
Soon after his
homecoming, instead of harboring bitterness toward those who had enslaved him,
Patrick felt called to return to Ireland to preach to the people there. He trained as a priest and, at the age of 40,
went back to Ireland as a bishop. In
time, he had preached throughout the island and left behind churches wherever
he went.
He was one of the
great Celtic missionaries. Like those
who would follow him, he tried to preach to people where they were and was
willing to build missionary teams that truly cared for the people. After his death, Ireland became a center of
Christianity and the base of missionary operations throughout much of northern
Europe.
From their mission
base at Iona these missionaries spread carried the gospel. Brendan (486-577) is second only to Patrick
as a popular Irish saint. He is reputed to have traveled to many distant lands
to share the gospel; he earned the nickname “the Navigator.” Scholars debate about whether he might have
reached North America.
Columba and
Columban were to other Irish missionaries.
Columba worked hard to reach the Scotts, while Columban ministered in
Europe.
In 1977,
archaeologists opened a tomb in Belgium.
Inside, they found a casket “ornamented in the Celtic manner and showing
the image of a woman…who carries a bishop’s crosier.”[10] Since she was carrying this traditional sign
of a bishop’s authority, archeologists concluded the woman was probably an
Irish missionary who had led a mission to the continent. The
Celtic monk/missionaries were tireless.
We move ahead
several centuries to look at another missionary, Raymond Lull (1232-1314).
Lull was born into
a wealthy family in Majorca. He received
a good education on the continent but when he returned home he felt
dissatisfied. He determined to become a
monk. But he reported that he had a
vision in which a voice chided him for that choice, saying it was ultimately
safe and selfish. Instead he should
expend his life as a missionary to the Muslims.
Lull set out to
learn as much as he could, even learning Arabic. His focus would be what we might call
apologetic evangelism. He would confront
the Muslims with the truth of Christianity.
He was well over
40 when he made his first journey into Muslim lands, Tunis. He was welcomed at first as a scholar but his
arguments were considered insulting to Islam and he was imprisoned. Some of the anger may have arisen when his
opponents could not answer his arguments.
Released he was told to return to his homeland. Instead, he hid in one of the coastal towns
but when his lack of freedom became unbearable, he left for Europe. He traveled speaking of the need for mission
education centers to train young men to reach Muslims and Jews.
In 1307, he
returned to North Africa where, again, he was imprisoned for insulting
Islam. He was sent back to Europe. He returned in 1314 and continued to face
hostile audiences—Zwemer says he may have lacked tact. In June 1315, an angry crowd stoned the 80
year-old missionary; he died of his injuries a few days later.
Interestingly,
some of Lull’s arguments mirror those of Norman Geisler, who raises serious
questions about the personal morality of Mohammed.
A prayer
attributed to Brendan illustrates the spirit of these missionaries:
Help me to journey beyond the familiar
and into the unknown.
Give me the faith to leave old ways
and break fresh ground with You.
Christ of the mysteries, I trust You
to be stronger than each storm within me.
I will trust in the darkness and know
that my times, even now, are in Your hand.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven,
and somehow, make my obedience count for
You.
WHAT DID THESE CHRISTIANS BELIEVE?
From the earliest
days, Christians were thinkers. They
pondered the implications of the message of the gospel, trying to understand
it. And Christians still do this. So the debates between those who favor “the
emerging church” and those who favor “the not-so-bad-the-way-things-are church”
are carrying on an old family tradition.
--After Paul and
the other NT writers, came the church fathers, the apologists, the
theologians; among these were Clement
of Rome, Justin Martyr, Origen, and Tertullian.
Later, there would be the Cappadocians (Basil, his brother Gregory of
Nyssa, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzus), Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius,
and on the cusp of the middle ages, the remarkable Augustine (about whom it
would eventually be said that the Reformation represented the clash between
Augustine’s doctrine of salvation and Augustine’s doctrine of the church).
--In the middle
ages there would be Peter Abelard (sadly famous primarily because of a scandal,
but whose book Sic et Non challenged
some to think more deeply about the faith and whose understanding of Christ’s
work came perilously close to ignoring the sacrificial element of Christ’s
death), Peter Lombard who literally composed the textbook most late medieval
theologians would cut their teeth on, Anselm who gave us both a challenging
ontological defense of the existence of God and the book Cur Deus Homo? that offered a reasoned explanation of the need for
the incarnation and the substitutionary atonement; and, probably the greatest
and most influential of them all, Thomas Aquinas who tried hard to explain
everything.
--Some of these
individuals were what are known as Scholastic Theologians. They applied Aristotelian thought and logic
to try to fill in the blanks in the Bible.
While they probably never really debated how many angels could dance on
the point of a pin, they did deal with other important questions such as: Will there be excrement in heaven? They did
important work but also put up obstacles for ordinary Christians attempting to
understand the faith. Just as important,
like the Protestant Scholastics of the 17th century and the
Fundamentalist scholastics of the 20th/21st centuries,
they gave the impression of knowing more than they could possibly know.
--Of course, some
of the thinkers of the middle ages focused on other issues. There were the mystics like Meister Eckhart,
Walter Hilton, Julian of Norwich (a woman who lived the better part of her life
in a cell attached to a church), Thomas a ‘Kempis, and the anonymous author of Theologia Germanica, a book that Luther
would praise as being third only to the Bible and Augustine in teaching him
about God and man.
Sadly, we can’t
look at these in detail because they are like the “rattlesnake ranches” just off the Texas interstates we just don’t
have time for a visit. We want to look at what the ruminations of
the theologians meant for the men and women sitting in the pews—although pews
were unknown until the later middle ages.
So, let’s look at
what the Christians gathering first in homes and later in churches believed.
Using some very
broad strokes, we can summarize the faith of the early church in this way:
1. They believed there is only one God.
--That was a rare
notion in this polytheistic age. With
the exception of the Jews, only the Christians were so radically
monotheistic. The God they believed in
was not limited to any tribe or territory, their God was God everywhere.
--They could have
escaped a lot of trouble if they had only been willing to say their God was one
of many.
2. They believed their God acted benevolently in
history.
--Unlike the gods
of the Greeks and the Romans, their God was not an indifferent observer.
--Their God did
not act capriciously but purposefully for the good of humanity.
3. They believed the record of God’s action was
found in the Bible.
--They would
ultimately claim the OT was a Christian book and include the books of the NT as
a venue of God’s revelation.
--This belief made
it essential they could know what books was rightly part of the Bible.
--The development
of the canon was a result of this need.
As we consider the
details of early Christian belief we are going to focus on two questions:
--One from Jesus
Himself: Who do men say that I am?
--One from a very frightened
jailer: What must I do to be saved?
In a very loose
sense, the first five centuries of church history were spent trying to answer
the first question, the next thousand years were spent trying to answer the
second.
Who was Jesus Christ?
The evidence
suggests the early church worked hard to help new believers grasp the core
message of the gospel, particularly as it impacted the identity of Jesus
Christ. Preaching and teaching were
designed to shape a worldview with Christ at its center. Consider this passage from Colossians:
15 He [Christ]
is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for
in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have
been created through him and for him. 17 He himself is before all things,
and in him all things hold together. 18 He is the head of the body, the
church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come
to have first place in everything. 19 For in him all the fullness of God
was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him God was pleased to reconcile to
himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the
blood of his cross.[11]
Many Bible
scholars believe this is poetry, perhaps even a hymn. It that’s so then, when the earliest
Christians sang, they were learning some pretty deep theology.
Understandably,
the earliest Christians wanted to better understand who Jesus was since there’s
little doubt they felt believed him to be exceptional. Yet, it’s also important for us to understand
something of the conclusions they reached and how they reached them. In the past few years, writers like Dan Brown
and scholars like Bart Ehrman have challenged the traditional view of Jesus,
arguing that it was the result of late fourth and fifth century politically
skullduggery.
The facts just
don’t back up such claims. To begin with
Christians saw in Jesus qualities that could only be explained if he were
somehow God in the flesh. It wouldn’t have been an easy conclusion for the
average Jew to reach but many of them did.
Larry Hurtado of
Edinburgh University has done exhaustive study of the writings of the earliest
Christians and demonstrated that from the very beginning Christians considered
Jesus to be God. The notion the church
never identified Jesus as God Incarnate until the third or fourth century does
not have historical support. It is a
myth rooted in modern wishful thinking.
This fact explains
why the earliest Christians reacted with such vehemence to the notions of the
Gnostics and Arius. These Christians
understood, as Paul made clear when he wrote Colossians, that if you get Jesus
wrong, you’ll probably get salvation wrong.
These two distinctly different heresies both called Jesus’ deity into
question.
While the earliest
Christians believed the man Jesus was also God, they were not quite so clear on
how this could be. For the better part
of four centuries, even while the church was struggling for its very survival,
Christian thinkers would strive to understand this puzzle. In the end, they didn’t so much find the
answer as come to a consensus that allowed them to draw a theological perimeter
around the area where they believed the answer lay. On the way to that consensus, some wandered
away on dangerous tangents.
These “heresies”
either so downplayed Christ’s humanity to the degree it seemed unreal or
threatened his deity to the extent it was lost.
Of the several
heresies the most threatening was Arianism.
Followers of the fourth-century preacher Arius, taught that Christ was a
created being, thus “there was a time when he was not.” Arius was from Alexandria, so were his most
determined opponents, Bishop Alexander and the young scholar who would become
the bishop, Athanasius. Arius was
excommunicated which only compounded the problem but he was able to find
followers among the Christians near Constantinople—the new capital.
The threat of
disunity in the empire led Constantine, the first Christian emperor, to call a
council at Nicaea 325. The council
condemned Arius and set to work on a creed; the resulting creed was clearly
anti-Arian. Christ was said to be
homoousius with the Father, of the same substance. Again the controversy was not over, to a
large degree because of the emperors’ repeated interference. In time Athanasius would be exiled several
times for refusing to make peace with the Arians. At times it even seemed as if Arianism would
become the official theology of the empire, all in the name of peace.
But, the church
leaders would not allow that, so they continued to resist until, in 381,
Emperor Theodosius called another council, this time at Constantinople. This council affirmed the decision of the
Council of Nicaea and Arianism was rejected.
Controversy would
continue because not all the issues had been resolved. Finally, in 451, at the Council of Chalcedon,
across the Bosporus from Constantinople, church leaders met again to deal with
the issue. The resulting definition of
Chalcedon became the primary statement of Christ’s identity by both Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, although some church groups in Egypt and
elsewhere never accepted it.
Interestingly,
Pope Leo, who did not attend the council though his writings helped shape the
outcome, waited two years before he approved definition. He did this because, in some of its other
decisions, the council said that monastic problems should be referred to
Constantinople, not Rome. Leo felt this
was an affront to his prestige and authority.
Still he would win political credibility as he persuaded Attila the Hun
to turn back from the city (452) and persuaded the Vandals to minimize their
damage to the city when they seized it a year later.
What must I do to be saved?
What must we do to
be saved? As the middle ages began,
Christians had moved a long way from the simple “Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will be saved.” Of
course, the church would have insisted that the answer was still the same but
we know more about the details.
The Philippian
jailer who asked the question, “What must I do to be saved?” was baptized the
very night he asked that question.
Several converts in Acts were baptized and brought into the Christian
community immediately upon professing their faith.
Things were very
different in the second century. Those
who wished to become Christian were required to undergo instruction in the
beliefs and practices of the faith.
According to Justin Martyr those who had undergone this instruction were
to fast for the remission of their sins and only then were they “brought by us
where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner as we were
ourselves regenerated.” Justin seems to
be laying the foundation for baptismal regeneration, the notion that the act of
baptism somehow brings about the spiritual transformation.
By the beginning
of the third century, those seeking to become Christians had to go through a
much more elaborate training period, lasting up to three years. Only then could they be baptized. Ironically, when the church baptized the head
of a household, it frequently baptized any children and infants as well.
While Christians
might disagree on whether new believers should be immediately baptized or go
through a period as “catechumens,” we can see here the beginning of an almost
superstitious view of the rite of baptism.
Remember this was
happening when the church was still living in a sometimes hostile state. When that situation changed, the route to
becoming a Christian changed as well.
With that change came a totally new way to see God’s grace.
Sunday school
children are often taught that grace is “God’s unmerited favor.” That’s not a bad definition. But we need to know more.
--Grace is a very
fragile doctrine. It can easily be
distorted with the simple word “and.”
Clement of Rome mentions Rehab’s faith but he says she was saved by “her
faith and her hospitality.” We
add the “and” for a couple reasons.
First, to insist salvation is by grace is an affront to our pride. Second, grace is frightening, especially to
some church leaders. They fear it will
give license to live wantonly. They fail
to understand that a true understanding of grace leads us to gratefully open
our lives to God’s transforming work.
--Grace is a very
durable relationship. I doubt we have to
fully understand God’s grace in order to receive God’s grace. Simply put, God bestows his grace whether we
deserve it or not. (Irony)
This is important
because so much had changed by the time the Middle Ages began. It had changed so much that some of what I
heard and read as a young Christian, suggested that from about the year 100 to
the 16th century, no one was really a Christian. I tend to think God is more gracious than
that.
This is not to
discount the troubling changes as the Middle Ages began. Robert Baker describes the essence of these
changes.
By 325 faith had lost its personal character as being the
whole dependence of a person immediately upon the person and work of Jesus
Christ. Rather, while Christ was a part
of the system, faith was to be directed toward the institution called the
Church; and salvation did not result from the immediate regenerating power of
the Holy Spirit but was mediated by the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. Since the sacraments were under
the control of the Church and since salvation came through them only, it
followed that a person must join the Church in order to be saved. This is exactly what Bishop Cyprian meant in
250 when he said that no man can have God for his Father who does not have the
Church for his mother.[12]
So the emphasis
had changed from faith in a person to faith in an institution. Some theologians would continue to say the
right thing about grace—the Biblical thing—but they would almost always add the
“and.” And, even when they didn’t, they
fell victim to the truth that, as someone has said, what you emphasize becomes
your message. And they emphasized the
sacraments.
The avenue to the grace of God was the
sacraments, those rites of the church designed to touch every aspect of our
lives from birth to death. A sacrament
was a conduit for God’s grace. While
some early Christian thinkers insisted there were many sacraments, for most of
the Middle Ages Christians insisted there were only seven that really
mattered.
What were these
seven sacraments? We can look at the
details of only a couple of them.
1. BAPTISM
--Baptism after
the Christianization of most of Europe was almost always “infant baptism.”
--This rite washed
away the “original sin” with which each of us is born, a condition that would
keep us from entering heaven. The soul
of an unbaptized infant would go to Limbo, a place which was neither heaven nor
hell. Unlike Purgatory, Limbo was a
permanent state for those who bore only their original sin but had not
committed any personal sins. There was
no punishment there but neither was there the joy and satisfaction of
heaven. Not all medieval theologians
agreed about the existence of Limbo.
--The rite was so
important that any person could baptize an infant in an emergency.
[Constantine and
others could justify the mass baptism of
their soldiers and of pagan peoples by claiming they were doing them a great
spiritual service, since baptism was the only way to be rid of their original
sin.]
--Everyone you
knew was most likely a church member.
Since they had been herded into ghettos, it’s unlikely you knew any
Jews. Anyway, Jews were reportedly
resistant to the gospel. Raymond Lull
believed Christians could improve their approach to them.
--What does this
view of baptism do for the impulse to evangelize? To some extent the goal of the medieval
church became helping people—who were already Christians—live in such a way as
to earn the “credits” to stay out of hell.
2. CONFIRMATION
--This rite,
performed sometime before adolescence, allowed the child to affirm his/her
belief. It had to be performed by a
bishop so some children never had this sacrament.
--Although, today,
confirmation is usually performed at about twelve years, in the middle ages
children as young as seven were sometimes confirmed.
3. THE MASS
--The core of this
rite was the moment when the bread and the wine were consecrated and became the
body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation).
In this miracle the “accidents” of the elements remains unchanged but
the “substance” changes.
--The rite that
involved the participation in the Eucharist.
To be a good Christian you had to attend mass at least once a year.
--Some taught that
just witnessing the Elevation of the Host was sufficient; there was no need to
actually partake of the bread. Participants received only the bread so there
was no risk of the “blood” being spilt.
4. PENANCE
--Christians sin
even after the efforts of the church to call them to live for God.
--Christians
needed forgiveness but this forgiveness had to be mediated through the priest (Confessor)
who hears the penitent’s confession.
When convinced of a person’s contrition, the priest would grant
absolution but something more remained.
--Penance is an
act or series of actions that will nullify the temporal penalty associated with
sin. Penance might involve saying a few
prayers or performing some act of charity, depending upon the severity of the
sin.
--[A form of the
sacrament of penance are indulgences. An
indulgence remits at least some time in purgatory. They are based on the notion of “the treasury
of merit.” The treasury consists of
those merits earned by saints above and beyond what they needed for their own
salvation. The Pope is able to draw on
this account and apply this merit to others through the indulgences. Indulgences are related to penance since the
penitent must pay for them. Eventually
the church began to teach that indulgences could help those already in
purgatory.
The popes
encouraged participation in the Crusades by promising a plenary indulgence to
any who died on a crusade. This sounds
disturbingly like the promise of Paradise to any who die in a jihad. ]
5 MARRIAGE
--Not everyone
would marry but the church was interested in maintaining the integrity of the
institution.
--Friar Laurence’s
scheme to help Romeo and Juliet—as flawed as it was—reflected the church’s
opposition to arranged or forced marriages.
Such marriages, it was believed, promoted adultery or divorce.
6 HOLY ORDERS
(Ordination)
--Again, not
everyone would enter orders.
--To be ordained a
priest could be a frightening thing.
Your words have the power to initiate the great miracle of
transubstantiation. Luther would speak
of trembling with terror at his first mass.
--Sufficient grace
was mediated through the other sacraments that not participating in one or two
of them was of little consequence.
7 LAST RITES
--A final
confession and blessing bestowed on the dying.
--That person who
has received this sacrament (or penance) is said to have been “shriven.”
Despite a painstaking
participation in the sacraments there remained a sense of uncertainty. The average Christian could understandably
ask, “Have I done enough?” With few
exceptions, the answer was “no”. Most
would have to spend some time in Purgatory, a place of suffering designed to
purge away our remaining sins. A concept
refined by Gregory the Great, Purgatory was based on certain passages in the
Apocrypha.
The Bible links grace and good works but those
works are the response to grace, not a necessary addition to grace. Unless you are very circumspect, under such a
system the recipient of your good works becomes a stepping stone toward heaven. At the same time, your good works becomes a burdensome
duty, not a joyful act of love.
Jeremy Jackson
describes some further consequences of the system.
If indiscriminate infant baptism associated with immediate
regeneration stimulated the idea of having to merit your salvation…. And it now becomes obvious that hidden away
behind all the ideas and practices [associated with the sacraments] is a
deficient view of the scope of the grace of God in Christ. Thus, the urge to evangelize is redirected
into an anxious preoccupation with the salvation of the already baptized.[13]
This emphasis upon
good works as a complement to grace, led to notion that there were within the
church the spiritually elite.
--Some were
recognized as “saints.” A term that once applied to every believer was now
applied to those who by their deaths as martyrs or their lives demonstrated a
special sanctity. They were a cut above
the ordinary Christian. They had accrued
merit or “credit” far beyond what they needed for their own salvation. Prudent Christians—aware of their spiritual
deficiency—would pray to the saints for help—praying particularly to Mary. Other saints were regionally important or
associated with particular occupations.
St Anne was the patron saint of miners.
Frightened by a storm, Martin Luther—whose father had been a miner—would
cry out, “St Anne, help me, I will become a monk.”
It’s hard to see
how the custom of praying to the saints, at least in the minds of the simple
Christian, didn’t imply that God is not especially gracious but must be
persuaded to answer our prayers.
--The prayers of
the monks were seen as more effective than those of the ordinary
Christian. One medieval writer commented
that the world is held together by the prayers of the monks. As a consequence, the presence of a monastery
was seen as a blessing to the community. (Of course, when some of the
monasteries became corrupt, some laypersons began to question just how much of
a blessing they were.)
The corruption of
some monasteries and some monk and other clergy is undeniable. Some scholars believe the requirement that
the clergy wear distinctive clothing was intended to make it harder for them to
enter brothels and alehouses unnoticed.
As the monasteries inherited land and other goods, their new wealth made
some monks lazy and fostered greed.
Originally, monks farmed their own land, grew their own food; the new
wealth allowed them to hire peasants to do this work. Periodically a new order would be formed by those
wishing to recapture the ideal.
Of course, not all
monasteries were corrupt and not all monks and priests were satisfied with this
answer to the question “What must I do to be saved?” John Wycliffe (c1339-1384) would question
papal authority and argue that the Bible is the sole source of faith and
practice. Consequently, he begins
translating the Bible into English. He
died of natural causes in 1384 but his ideas were condemned at the Council of
Constance in 1415; later his bones were dug up and burned. He would be a great influence a century later
when the continental Reformers began their work.
It wasn’t all bad
More could be said
but here are three suggestions.
1. The medieval church, particularly through the
monasteries, helped preserve and protect the literary heritage of the early
church and the Greco/Roman world.
Consider Thomas Cahill’s How the
Irish Saved Civilization.
2. The medieval church created a valuable
treasure of fundamental theology. For
example, it protected the person of Christ from any error that would have reduced
him to a mere underling of God.
Augustine, Thomas, and Anselm produced writings that are still
influencing theologians today.
3. The medieval church infused culture with the
ideal of charity and benevolence. It
sometimes failed to live up to its ideals.
Still, however troubled the medieval world may have been, because of the
church there was less bloodshed than there might have been.
[1] R. G. Clouse, R. V. Pierard, and E. M.
Yamauchi, Two Kingdoms: The Church and
Culture Through the Ages, Chicago: Moody Press, 1993, 39.
[3] Quoted in Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical
History of Christian Missions (2004), p. 37.
[4] The Holy Bible : New Revised Standard
Version. Nashville :
Thomas Nelson, 1996, c1989, S. Phm 15.
Emphasis added.
[5] Ivor J. Davidson, The Birth of the Church: From
Jesus to Constantine, A.D. 30-312, Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004, pp. 129-130. (emphasis mine) Davidson believes the Pastoral Epistles may
represent a special circumstance and were never intended to “suggest
unambiguously that women were necessarily intended to desist from all ministry
and leadership activities in the churches at large.” (p. 128)
[6] Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A
Global History of Christianity (2012), p. 154ff. I regret I found this book
too late to make better use of it in this look at the medieval church.
[7] Technically, the couple was guilty of
“atheism,” but historians believe this was an appellation for being Christians.
[11] The
Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Col 1:15–20). Nashville: Thomas
Nelson Publishers.
