The History of the Christian Church

Delve into the fascinating world of early church history, where the Church Fathers shaped Christian thought. Discover the distinction between Ante-Nicean and Post-Nicean leaders, and how Apologists like Irenaeus defended the faith against threats like Gnosticism. Learn about Irenaeus's influential work 'Against Heresies' and his personal connections that highlight the importance of guiding spiritual growth. Uncover how these early leaders still resonate with today's church issues.

This episode is titled, “The Spreading Tree “Tertullian, pastor of the church of Carthage in North Africa, addressed unbelievers at the beginning of the 3rd C, saying à“We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left to you only your temples.”That introduces our theme for this episode; the expansion of the Faith in the early centuries.Writing in the middle of the 2nd C, Justin Martyr said,“There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons—among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things.”Comments by other Early Church leaders like Irenæus, Arnobius, & Origen lead us to conclude that by the end of the 3rd C the name of Christ was known, revered, & persecuted in many provinces & cities of the Roman Empire. In one of his edicts, the Emperor Maximian says that “almost all” had abandoned the worship of the old gods for the new sect called Christianity.In the absence of hard numbers, tallying the number of Jesus’ followers can’t be precise, but a reasonable assumption of the faithful stands about 10 to 12% of the total population at the beginning of the 4th C. In some places, the number was much higher as local movements saw the Gospel take firmer root. According to Chrysostom, the Christian population of the city of Antioch at the end of the 4th C. was half the whole.While 10% of the entire Empire may not seem that impressive a number, keep in mind that 10% shared a spiritual unity that made them appear a far larger group when set over against the highly-fragmented 90% of the pagan world.Looking back to Asia where the whole thing started, the Apostles had spread the new faith over Israel, Syria, & Asia Minor. According to Pliny the Younger, at the dawn of just the 2nd C, the pagan temples in Asia Minor were almost completely neglected & animal sacrifices hardly performed because so many pagan had converted to the new faith.In a first step of what would prove to be a major outreach to the East, during the 2nd C Christianity took root in the city of Edessa in Mesopotamia along with several regions in Persia. In the 3rd C., it reached North into Armenia & South into Arabia.There’s an enduring legend that the apostles Thomas & Bartholomew carried the Gospel to India. For sure, a Christian teacher named Pantaeus of Alexandria went there about 190. By the 4th C, vibrant national churches were growing in the subcontinent.It was the moving of the seat of power from Rome to Constantinople in the early 4th C that helped ensure the migration of the Faith eastward. It also meant that all the important early Church Councils were held in or around Constantinople.  The great doctrinal controversies over the Trinity & Nature of Christ were carried out mostly in Asia Minor, Syria, & Egypt.Speaking of Egypt, Christianity in Africa gained a firm foothold first there, during the time of the Apostles. The city of Alexandria was a world center of learning & culture. It’s libraries & schools drew from all over the world and many Jews called it home. It was in Alexandria that the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, 200 yrs before Jesus. This Greek Bible, called the Septuagint, opened the seemingly opaque ideas of the Jews to Gentiles seekers after truth for the first time. It was in Alexandria that the religion of Moses was set alongside the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. It was there the Jewish philosopher Philo sought to harmonize Greek & Jewish thought. Many of his ideas were picked up by later Christian apologists in defending the faith against Roman misconceptions.Ancient tradition says it was Mark who laid the foundation of the church in Alexandria, which became one of the 5 most important & influential churches of the first Centuries. A theological school flourished in Alexandria from the 2nd C in which the great church fathers Clement & Origen taught. From Alexandria, the Gospel spread South into Nubia (modern Sudan) & Ethiopia. At a council of Alexandria in 235, 20 African bishops attended from all over the Nile basin.During the 4th C, in a subject we’ll treat more fully in a later episode, Egypt coughed up the Arian heresy, then quickly answered it with Athanasian orthodoxy. Egypt was the birthplace of monasticism as practiced by its earliest advocates, Antony & Pachomius. Monasticism then spread across the rest of the Christian world. But that’s yet another subject for a couple later episodes.Christianity spread from Egypt across the rest of North Africa quickly. It helped that there were numerous Roman outposts reached by 3 or 4 days sailing from Italy. The faith spread rapidly over the fertile fields & burning sands of Mauritania & Numidia, taking root in Carthage. In 258 a synod of 87 bishops met there & just 50 yrs later the Donatists held a council of 270 bishops.It may be of interest to some listeners that the oldest Latin translation of the Bible, called the “Itala” & was the basis of Jerome’s “Vulgate”, was produced in Africa for Africans, not in Rome for Romans, because the Christians there used Greek. Latin theology also wasn’t born in Rome, but in Carthage. Tertullian was its father. Latin theology then grew in North Africa to find its zenith in the world of Augustine of Hippo, another North African city. The influence of Augustine simply cannot be overstated, as we’ll see.After reaching Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, and a narrow band of North Africa, the Expansion of the Faith stalled. Whether or not it would have renewed its reach further South becomes moot in light of the Conquest of Islam in the 7th & 8th Cs.Tracking the expansion of the Faith into Europe, we pick up the report of the early church historian Eusebius who said by the middle of the 3rd C the Church at Rome had a bishop, 46 elders, 7 deacons with 7 assistants, 42 acolytes which we can think of as “interns,”  50 readers, exorcists, & ushers; & 1500 widows & poor who were under its care. From these numbers we guesstimate the actual membership of the Church at about 50,000 or 1/20th of the City’s population. The strength of Christianity in Rome is confirmed by the enormous extent of the catacombs where Christians were buried.From Rome, the church spread to all the cities of Italy. The first Roman synod we know of was held in the mid-2nd C and had 12 bishops in attendance. A century later there were 60.An official persecution of the followers of Christ in Gaul in 177 shows the church had to already be there and large enough as to raise the concern of the authorities. The faith arrived in Gaul, not from Rome, but from Asia Minor. We know that because Irenæus, the bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna & Irenaeus reported in to his peers in Asia Minor rather than to Rome. It wasn’t till the middle of the 3rd C that Rome sent missionaries to Gaul. One of them was Dionysius who founded the first church at Paris, then died a martyr at Montmartre to become the patron saint of France.Spain was most likely reached with the Faith in the 2nd C. The Council of Elvira in 306 saw 19 bishops assemble to catch up and discuss the work of their various provinces. The apostle Paul once formed the plan of a missionary journey to Spain, and according to Clement of Rome he did preach there.Irenæus reported that the Gospel had been preached to the Germans and several other Northern tribes but he likely meant just those portions of Northern Europe that had been brought under Roman control.Although it’s a bit of a mystery why the North African Tertullian would know, he said the Faith had taken root in Britain by the end of the 2nd C. As we’ll see in a later episode, the Celtic church existed in England, Ireland, & Scotland, quite independent of Rome, long before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons by the Roman missionary Augustine. In fact, that early Celtic church sent missionaries to Germany, France, & the Low Countries well before the Italian outreach. In the mid-8th C, the Venerable Bede reported that about the year 167 the British king Lucius asked the bishop of Rome to send missionaries. Then, at the Council of Arles in 314, British bishops from York, London & Colchester, were in attendance.This would be a good place to talk about the Expansion of the Faith into the East but that’s a huge, important, and all too often overlooked part of the History of the Church, so we’ll save it for later.  Suffice it for now – as many students of history know, the Roman Empire got stalled in the East, first by the Parthians, then later by their successors, the Sassanids.The Sassanids gladly applied the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And that meant from the late 2nd thru 3rd C, as Christians were being persecuted in the Roman Empire, they were welcomed to the East by the Sassanids. The church sprang up and grew rapidly all over Mesopotamia & Persia in what today we know as Iran. Some of the greatest cultural achievements of the Faith during the 3rd C were in this Persian church. But when Constantine embraced Christianity and the Church moved into the position of political favor in the Roman west, you may guess what that meant for the Church in the regions controlled by the Sassanids. Still, this eastern church had developed its own unique culture, and instead of moving back west to join the church of the Byzantine-Roman world, persecution pushed it even further east, all the way to China.Let’s finish out this episode with a look at Justin Martyr who we began with a quote from.Justin was born in the ancient city of Shechem in the very center of Israel. But by the time he was born in AD 100, it was a Roman city called Flavia Neapolis = New Flavianberg. Raised by pagan parents, he sought life’s meaning in the major philosophies of his day. But his pursuit of truth resulted in nothing more than a series of bitter disappointments.Justin was too sharp to swallow the shallow reasoning & logical inconsistencies of pagan thought. Whether it was religion or philosophy, his keen intellect cut through the silliness that was the hallmark of the pagan worldview.His first teacher was a Stoic who “knew nothing of God and did not even think knowledge of him to be necessary.” After that Justin followed an itinerant philosopher, who was more interested in collecting his fee than the pursuit of truth. Next up was a Pythagorean, but his course in music, astronomy, and geometry was too slow for Justin’s voracious mind. Finally, he applied himself to Platonism which was more intellectually demanding, but proved once again to hold too many inconsistencies.Then, at about the age of 30, after a long conversation with an elderly gentleman, Justin’s life was transformed. He said, “A fire was suddenly kindled in my soul. I fell in love with the prophets and these men who had loved Christ; I reflected on all their words and found that this philosophy alone was true and profitable. That is how and why I became a philosopher. And I wish that everyone felt the same way that I do.”Justin was determined to reconcile faith & reason. His work took him first to Ephesus in AD 132 where he held a debate with a Jew named Trypho about the correct way to interpret Scripture. The book which came out of this debate is aptly titled, The Dialogue with Trypho & teaches 3 main points:1) The Old Covenant has passed away to make place for the New;2) The Logos is the God of the Old Testament; AND à3) Believers in Christ constitute a New Israel; that is, the new covenant people of God.Justin then moved to Rome, founded a school, and wrote 2 bold Apologias = formal defenses of the Faith, intended to be read by pagan officials persecuting Christians. Think of an Apologia like a legal brief.Justin’s First Apology published in 155 was addressed to Emperor Antoninus Pius. It was an attempt to explain the Faith, which as we saw in an earlier episode was so badly misunderstood by unbelieves of that time.  Justin showed how Christianity was not a threat to the State and should be treated as a legal religion.He reasoned with the Emperor that Christians are his “best helpers and allies in securing good order, convinced as we are that no wicked man … can be hidden from God, and that everyone goes to eternal punishment or salvation in accordance with the character of his actions.” He made an eloquent case for why Christianity was superior to paganism, that Christ fulfilled prophecy, and that paganism was in reality a poor imitation of true religion.Justin’s First Apology has become an important record for students of history in that he gave a detailed description of early Christian worship to prove to unbelievers the Faith wasn’t some kind of subversive movement. The most famous passage is this:On the day called Sunday there is a gathering together in the same place of all who live in a given city or rural district. The memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then when the reader ceases, the president in a discourse admonishes and urges the imitation of these good things. Next we all rise together and send up prayers.When we cease from our prayer, bread is presented and wine and water. The president in the same manner sends up prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability, and the people sing out their assent, saying the ‘Amen.’ A distribution and participation of the elements for which thanks have been given is made to each person, and to those who are not present they are sent by the deacons.Those who have means and are willing, each according to his own choice, gives what he wills, and what is collected is deposited with the president. He provides for the orphans and widows, those who are in need on account of sickness or some other cause, those who are in bonds, strangers who are sojourning, and in a word he becomes the protector of all who are in need.Justin’s Second Apology was written soon after Marcus Aurelius became emperor in 161. In these writings, Justin showed that the Christian faith alone as genuinely rational. He said the Logos; which was an important philosophical concept of the time, became incarnate to teach humanity truth and to redeem people from spiritual deception. Since Marcus Aurelius was a true philosopher Emperor, Justin sought to appeal to his love of truth with this Second Apology.But the Emperor was more enamored of Greek thought than the new-fangled innovations of the Christians. 4 yrs after penning the Second Apology, Justin and his disciples were arrested. The prefect asked him to denounce his faith by making a sacrifice to the gods. Justin replied, “No one who is rightly minded turns from true belief to false.” It was an easy answer for Justin because he’d spent his adult life discerning the true from the false.He was taken out and beheaded. Since he gave his life for “true philosophy,” Justin was surnamed Martyr.

This week's episode is titled “Buy One, Get One Free.”In the last episode we touched briefly at a heretic named Marcion. He was one of the first to introduce a false teaching that would evolve into a major challenge to the emerging Christian Faith; that errant movement was known as Gnosticism.Marcion was the son of the pastor of the church in Pontus, on the Southern coast of the Black Sea. He was a ship-owner sailing passengers & shipping cargo throughout the Empire. Around AD 140, Marcion’s father disfellowshipped him from the congregation. This was the result either of Marcion’s seduction of a young woman, his increasingly heretical ideas, or both. Whatever the reason, he relocated to Rome where he was unknown & his reputation was untarnished. When he made a large contribution to the church at Rome, it greased the wheels of his acceptance as a member in good standing.But Marcion soon began espousing ideas that diverged from what the elders taught. In his previous travels, Marcion had been influenced by a teacher named Cerdo, an early advocate of what today is known as Gnosticism.Now, let me be clear, Gnosticism was more a religious trend than a united movement with a settled set of doctrines. While Gnostics held a common set of core beliefs, they interpreted them widely. This makes describing Gnosticism difficult. Generally, we can say it was a mash-up of àGreek philosophy,Eastern mystery cults, andChristian terminology. From Greek philosophy, Gnostics borrowed the idea that all physical matter was inherently an unalterably evil, while the spiritual realm was equally, inherently & unalterably good. From esoteric & occult Eastern mystery sects they took the idea there was a secret body of knowledge that when understood granted enlightenment. This enlightenment was the Gnostic equivalent of salvation because it liberated one’s consciousness from mere physical existence into a kind of permanent spirituality.Gnosticism took its name from this idea of “salvation thru enlightenment.” The Greek word ‘gnosis’ means ‘knowledge.’Because the Christian movement was growing rapidly, Gnostics adopted Christian forms & terms as a sneaky marketing ploy, hoping to pawn off their ideas as an elite form of Christianity. The ploy worked & Gnosticism took root in several congregations just as winds of false teaching do in every generation.Marcion was one of the first to introduce Gnostic elements in his highly-edited form of Christianity. Drawing from Cerdo, he proposed 2 different gods; an angry, vengeful OT deity, & a warm, fuzzy father-figure of the NT. Toting the Gnostic line, Marcion said the physical body was evil & promoted a rigorous asceticism that denied all physical pleasure. Marcion’s followers took communion by drinking water because wine was too tasty. They went so far as to say even marital sex was taboo.Marcion claimed Jesus was not born of Mary. He said Jesus appeared at Capernaum in AD 29 as a grown man. Note that = Jesus only appeared. Marcion said Jesus didn't have a literal body. He couldn't since being physical, the body was evil. Jesus only appeared, or seemed to have a body; in truth, he was more phantom than tangible.This is called Docetism; one of the earliest forms of Gnosticism. Docetism comes from the word meaning to seem. Marcion said the death & resurrection of Christ weren't literal; they couldn't be since Jesus wasn't corporeal. They were just a phantom demonstration of God's love and sacrifice. Though the church at Rome quickly became hip to Marcion’s theological shenanigans & declared his ideas heretical in 144, they gained some traction and Marcion set up a counterfeit church in both Italy & in Asia Minor where the Eastern mystery cults were popular.  Marcionite fellowships reached as far as Arabia & Egypt & were still operating well into the 4th Century.Marcion’s was only one of several streams of Gnosticism that developed during the 2nd & 3rd Centuries to challenge Christian orthodoxy. The main feature of all the Gnostics was their sharp dualism, splitting up the physical & spiritual into utterly divergent realms. They believed the spiritual realm contained a hierarchy of spiritual beings who were layered upward toward a transcendent & ultimate spirit. This transcendent god had given rise to a lower deity, which had done likewise, & so on over thousands of spiritual emanations until there was a spirit distant enough from the origin to be so low as to be able to create the physical universe. Some Gnostics like Cerdo & Marcion, said this lowly creator spirit was the Jewish God of the OT.Gnostics believed that sparks of divinity, little portions of pure spirit were locked inside some, but not all, humans. Those who had them, they said, would become Gnostics. Another clever marketing ploy; after all, who doesn’t want to think they have a little spark of something special? So, they were tempted to go Gnostic to prove they did. The next step was to pay one of the Gnostic teachers the requisite fee to learn the Gnosis, that is, the secret knowledge, so they could have their divine spark fanned into full flame.Voilà = Enlightenment!It was an ancient version of, “The first lesson is free, but if you want to go deeper, well, that’s going to cost you. Oh, & by the way, if you’re smart, you WILL join us – because that’s what smart holders of the divine spark do. You want to be one of the special one’s don’t you? Well, sign up, pay the fee & you’re in! Oh and BTW – if you sign up today, it’s half off.”Okay, I obviously made that last part up, but once you realize what the Gnostic teachers were all about, you wouldn’t’ really be surprised if they did have ancient versions of all the modern sales gimmicks. Family & group plans, Buy One; Get One Free, No Shipping.For the Gnostics, Enlightenment equaled Salvation. It was the realization they weren’t mere humans devoid of the divine spark, so little better than animals. They were earth-bound spirits destined to re-emerge with the divine hierarchy, that series of emanations from the supreme, transcendent God. Gnosticism was a stepped progression of spiritual growth whereby members increased their rank by paying their Gnostic guides more & more to learn increasingly powerful gnosis. If this sounds similar to a modern religious group that calls itself by a similar name = Something like, uhhh à Knowledgeology = Well there really is nothing new under the sun.Gnosticism presented a challenge to the Church for a couple of reasons.First = Gnostics used many of the same terms Christians used. This confused novices and those not properly taught. It’s something pseudo-christian cults do to this day. They use orthodox vocabulary but pour different meanings into the words.Second = It’s human nature to be attracted to that which is secret, hidden & mysterious; and that’s what the Gnostics were all about.Third = The Gnostics believed they were superior to others. This appealed to ever-present pride. The Bible teaches that humans were created in the image of God & originally destined for glory. There’s a latent sense of a call to glory that lingers in the soul. Greatness beckons us all. Gnostics said this was the divine spark & only they could activate it.Fourth = Human nature assumes something as important as salvation has to be costly. There’s no such thing as a free-lunch. The Christian Gospel says while salvation is by God’s grace & free to us, it’s supremely costly to God because it cost the Life of Christ. But many miss this & think grace is utterly free.  The Gospel’s message of salvation by grace seemed thin & weak to those convinced there had to be work involved, compared to the Gnostic campaign of "Pay to Play."What comes as a surprise is to realize the first real doctrinal challenge to Christianity was not over Jesus’ deity. It was over His humanity. Today, most controversy is over Jesus being God. It’s easy to see Him as a man. What’s more difficult is to understand how the human and divine come together in the Incarnation, so this becomes one of the main points of contention with non-Christian and the cults. The Docetism of Marcion and other Gnostics maintained Jesus's divinity but denied his humanity.And let me just give a bit of a teaser for some of our later episodes when we get to the 4th & 5th Centuries. Turns out the battles that went on in the church over how to understand the dual nature of Christ became a bloody & contentious period of Church history. One of the Church Councils is nick-named the Gangster Synod because the church leaders who attended it beat each other up over this issue. è Fun times!Back to Gnosticism . . .Other branches of the Gnostics taught Jesus & Christ were 2 separate entities. Jesus was just a man with a human mother & father while Christ was a spirit that descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, ministered thru him for 3 yrs, then departed in the Garden of Gethsemane. So the man that died on the cross was just a spent shell; his death accomplished nothing in terms of salvation. These Gnostics claimed that the Christ-spirit or Christ-consciousness continued to inhabit their leaders & could come upon anyone who showed sufficient enlightenment.Like Marcion with his abbreviated list of approved books we considered in the previous episode, the Gnostics edited portions of the NT that spoke of Christ's physicality. They couldn’t have Him writing in the dust of the ground or eating after the resurrection because, well, spirits don’t do those kinds of things. They also had to insert episodes into the Jesus-story that gave an opening for their aberrant theology. The recent spate of alternative Gospels that have made the news are for the most part Gnostic Scriptures known to the early church but rejected for their spurious origin and dubious Gnostic purpose. They weren't included in the NT canon because they didn't meet the strenuous criteria used to validate accepted writings.As I mentioned, there were several branches or streams of Gnosticism. They differed in all sorts of ways. One of the major divisions was on how to deal with their core-belief in the inherent evil of all matter. One group believed the proper way to respond was by a strict asceticism that avoided physical pleasure. They ate only the most bland foods , drank tasteless beverages, wore uncomfortable clothes, abstained from sex & avoided any stimulation of the senses deemed pleasurable.The other tendency was a 180° reversal of asceticism. These Gnostics immersed themselves in physical pleasure. They said asceticism was pointless because whether it was pleasurable or not, contact with the world was unalterably evil – so it didn’t matter! If it was all evil, might was well enjoy it! These Gnostics made it their aim to so immerse themselves in pleasure, and this often meant indulging in the grossest kinds of immorality, that they’d experience enlightenment anyway, and this would prove that their consciousness was divorced from the body. These Gnostics said their divine spark was like a pearl that could not be stained by the muck of the world. Of course, this was quite appealing to people who wanted to continue in sin and believe they were going to heaven when they died.Spread between these extremes, were other branches of Gnostic thought & teaching.Until the 19th Century most of what we know about the Gnostics came from Christian leaders like Irenaeus & Origen who refuted their ideas.Here’s what the Early Church Father, Irenaeus, wrote about the Gnostics in his preface to his work; “Against Heresies.”These men falsify the oracles of God, and prove themselves evil interpreters of the good word of revelation. They also overthrow the faith of many, by drawing them away, under a pretense of superior knowledge, from Him who rounded and adorned the universe; as if they had something more excellent and sublime to reveal, than God who created the heaven and the earth, and all things therein. By means of specious words, they cunningly allure the simple-minded to inquire into their system; but they nevertheless clumsily destroy them, while they initiate them into their blasphemous and impious opinions . . . and these simple ones are unable, even in such a matter, to distinguish falsehood from truth.As I said, until recently, pretty much all historians knew of ancient Gnosticism was what it’s opponents said about it. Then, several decades ago, ancient Gnostic manuscripts began to surface. The more notable of these are the Codex Askewianus, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, the Wisdom of Jesus, & the Acts of Peter. In 1946, a collection of Gnostic manuscripts was discovered near Nag Hammadi in Egypt. They were dated to the late 4th Century.Simon Magus, mentioned in Acts 8, was labeled by early Christians as the originator of Gnosticism and may indeed have had a hand in blending Greek philosophy, Eastern mysteries, & Christian lingo into a home-spun spiritualism. After Simon, another Gnostic teacher named Menander followed up on & elaborated on Simon’s work. Saturninus brought Gnosticism to Antioch in Syria where a thriving Christian community already existed.Cerinthus spread Gnosticism in Asia Minor & as we've seen Cerdo & Marcion brought Gnostic ideas to Rome.Where Gnosticism thrived was in the North African city of Alexandria, the Roman Empire’s 2nd largest & a highly-influential city. Alexandria was a center of culture & learning & Gnosticism's presence there greatly advanced its reach.The arid conditions of North Africa facilitated the preservation of documents, so some of our most ancient manuscripts of the NT come from that region. Some conservative scholars believe these manuscripts bear evidence of Gnostic tampering in that they tend to exclude portions of the Gospels that reference Jesus’ corporeal existence, as well as those parts of the NT epistles which speak of the life of Faith affecting the physical world.But the net result of Gnosticism on the Church was the clarification of what Christians believe about the humanity and deity of Christ & the nature of faith. Gnostic challenges moved Church leaders to identify which books were Scripture as well as what makes for  essential doctrine. Though the cause of orthodoxy was advanced by confronting Gnosticism, Gnostic ideas became entrenched in some churches and by the early 4th Century, when Christianity was finally removed from under the heel of Imperial persecution, Church leaders were split over some of the ideas Gnosticism had inserted.But that’s a matter for a latter episode.

This episode is titled “Writings.”The history of the Christian Faith & Church inevitably has to deal with the importance of Books. From its earliest days the Faith has been intimately linked to the Scriptures. At first, Scripture was the Hebrew Bible or what is known today as the Old Testament. But other writings were added to the Church’s Bible as the years passed.The question of what writings to include in the Bible was one of the major topics of discussion during the first 4 centuries. But the question of what ought to be included or excluded is not nearly the contentious debate skeptics claim. With rare exception, church leaders generally agreed what texts comprised Scripture. Their reluctance to make an official pronouncement was because humility prohibited them claiming the authority to do so. Still, by the 4th Century, Church leaders recognized time was running out on those who were in a position to make the needed determination.Following the age of the martyrs, the next period of Church history was marked by theological challenge. It was crucial local congregations have a standard to go by, an authoritative body of doctrine by which to evaluate what was being taught. That authority was the Bible.Christians started with those Scriptures the Jews already revered as God’s Word, the Tanach, or as Christians referred to it, the OT. To this base of 39 books, believers added another set of writings they called the New Testament. Together, these 2 Testaments comprise what's called the “Canon of Scripture.”Canon means a measuring rod, as in a ruler. The Canon of Scripture is the standard for measuring if something is straight, if it aligns with truth. The Bible was esteemed Truth because it was regarded as God's inspired & inerrant Word.And that's what proved such a daunting challenge to Church leaders as they considered what to include in the NT Canon. Who were they to decide what was inspired by the Holy Spirit & ought to be regarded as the standard by which to evaluate all else? Still, the task was necessary so they developed a criteria by which to decide what ought to be included in the Canon. Their reasoning went like this . . .First was the OT canon of Jewish Scriptures. Then Jesus came as the Word of God made flesh. Though Jesus wrote no books, His life and words were written on the hearts and minds of the Apostles, whose teaching in both oral & written form was accepted as authoritative.Early evidence makes it clear that letters from the Apostles were circulated & read in the churches, being accepted as laying down the norms of Christian belief and practice. A ravenous hunger for stories of Jesus moved the Apostles to develop a standard oral tradition that we see today forming the core of the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, & to a certain degree, Luke.But how do we get to the 27 books that form today's NT canon? What criteria did Church leaders use when they finally identified those books?1St - A candidate writing for inclusion had to have a self-identifying quality about it as having been inspired by God. It had to possess a certain power to affect the lives of readers toward God.2nd - A candidate writing had to have a long reputation among the churches for having been used in worship to the edification of believers.3rd - A writing had to have a close connection to an Apostle. If not written by the Apostle himself, was the author a close associate of an Apostle & did it bear the mark of the Apostle’s influence?For example . . .Luke wasn’t an apostle but his Gospel and the Book of Acts are included in the NT because he was a close associate of the Apostle Paul and had interviewed the other Apostles in researching Jesus’ story.Mark wasn’t an apostle, but received his information about Jesus from the Apostle Peter. He was also a companion of Paul’s; sort of. But that’s another story.On the other side of the issue, in the late 1st Century, Clement, the 2nd or 3rd pastor at Rome, wrote a letter to the church at Corinth. That letter was read often at Corinth in the years that followed and proved of great benefit. But because Clement wasn't deemed to have an Apostolic connection, his letter wasn't included in the NT canon. There wasn't even much debate if it should be. It didn’t pass the test, so it wasn’t included.Because the test of Apostolic origin was crucial to canonical books, the Church leaders of the late 2nd Century realized time was running out on reliable witnesses who could confirm a writing’s Apostolic authority. The pressure was on to put their imprimatur of acceptance on those works connected to the Apostles.Since we’re speaking about the writings that made it INTO the NT, let me mention a couple of influential works that didn’t but were nevertheless crucial in shaping the early understanding of the Faith.One of the most important extra-Biblical writings of the early church was the Didache.  We don’t know when it was written but it was in use as a manual for church life by the 1st decade of the 2nd C. The Didache gives instructions for how to conduct services, worship, baptisms, Communion, and what was turning into a growing problem, how to exercise church discipline. The Didache also had instructions for how to discern heresy. The last section contains instructions for how to live in light of the Lord’s return – which lends tremendous weight to the idea of imminency.Pardon me for a little personal comment here but it’s hard to resist.But even before I make that comment, I need to comment – on my comments. And I need to – because I got a great email from a faithful subscriber who told me he’s recommend the podcast to a lot of friends & acquaintances. A few of them told him they enjoyed the podcast, until my particular bias came out. Then, I guess they stopped listening. And he was bummed, because he likes the podcast and puts up with my occasional personal commentary, because well, he mostly agrees with it, but also because the rest of the podcast steers a pretty unbiased course through the subject matter.We had a nice little email dialog and I shared WHY I DO make occasional comments. I realized while writing him that I ought to share that here. He thought it was a good idea. So here goes . . .I share infrequent remarks & personal opinion for 2 reasons . . .1) You get to know me a little better. With my favorite podcasts, after I’ve listened for a while, I find myself wanting to know more about the author. So when they share little tid-bits about themselves, it’s fun & makes the whole experience more relational. I don’t want to hear a whole podcast about their cat, but hearing they have one makes the author more real, rather than just a formless voice.2) It’s good for us to hear the opinions of those we differ with, in their own voice, rather than told what they said or believe by those of our own persuasion. The followers of Jesus ought to be aimed at relational maturity, & that means accepting there’s a big world out there filled with people who don’t all agree with us. Learning to respect them and let them speak, without feeling like I’ve betrayed some kind of loyalty to God is crucial. I can listen w/o agreeing. In fact, I need to, because often times, by listening, I realize what others TOLD me they believed, ISN’T! And even if it is; persuading them isn’t going to be furthered by shutting them off & turning away because I don’t agree.If you’ve gone to the sanctorum.us website, you probably know I’m a pastor of an Evangelical non-denominational church called CC in Southern CA. So my comments will be what can generally be called a conservative, Protestant position. If you’re interested in more detail, you can visit our church website, which you can track down by going to the sanctorum.us website. When I do make one of those comments, I’ll try to remember to preface it with a disclaimer, a notice, so you can make whatever mental adjustment you need to. I would just ask that you hear me out. You don’t have to agree. I don’t expect everyone will. But please don’t toss the rest of the podcast for the sake of what I really do think is an important part of making this podcast better by being more personal.So, with all that preface – now to it. We were talking about how the last section of the Didache is instructions for how to live in light of the Lord’s return – which lends tremendous weight to the idea of imminency.I’m rather tired of hearing that “No one believed in a pre-tribulation rapture until Margaret MacDonald & John Darby made it up in the 1830’s.” The vast majority of people who say that do so because they heard someone else say it. They haven’t done any historical work to see if it’s true. It isn’t. And even it if WAS – it makes as much sense as saying Sola Scriptura & Sola Fide were made up by Martin Luther & John Calvin in the 16th C. That’s absurd! Does the neglect of a Biblical reality for hundreds of years make it any less true? All John Darby did was restore much needed attention to a neglected belief of the Apostles & Early Church. A belief amply supported by the sense of urgency found in the Didache.Okay, end of commentary; back to the history . . .Another writing early Christians used to amplify their faith was called The Shepherd of Hermas. This work from the late 1st to mid-2nd C was written by Hermas, a former slave who says an angel appeared to him in the form of a shepherd & dictated the contents of the book.It contains 5 visions, 12 commands & 10 parables. It’s highly allegorical and addresses problems that divided the Church, calling the faithful to repent.The Shepherd was so influential that a handful of the Early Church Fathers thought it ought to be included in the NT. But its failure, like Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians, to hold a clear Apostolic connection precluded its inclusion.Another event, a highly unfortunate situation, forced the hand of the Church leaders in moving to complete the canon.A heretic named Marcion [Mar-key-own] set up a counterfeit church that paralleled the Apostolic Faith. But he proposed 2 gods; A wrathful, angry, violent God of the Jews & OT, and a loving, kind, benevolent Father-God of the NT & Christians. Marcion rejected the OT and those NT books he considered too Jewish; books like Matthew, Mark, Acts, Hebrews, 1 & 2 Timothy, & Titus. Marcion’s Bible was a highly-edited Gospel of Luke & a handful of Paul's letters.Though the Church excommunicated Marcion in AD 144, his rejection of all things Jewish carried a certain resonance with some Gentile believers persecuted by Jews. Marcion formed his counterfeit church from their ranks. It was the heretical Marcion’s pre-emptive move of identifying which books were Scripture that forced Church leaders’ hand to provide an official list of genuine Christian Scripture.The OT was retained & reaffirmed as God's Word, & for the most part the books we recognize as the NT Canon today. I say, “for the most part” because there were a few books that continued to be debated until the Council of Carthage closed the Canon in 397 with the 27 books of our NT. If this sounds like a late date to complete the Canon, know that the list the Council settled on had been in circulation for many years prior to the official statement at Carthage.A couple of decades after the heresy of Marcion, another challenge to orthodoxy arose. Around 160, 2 women and a man joined forces in Phrygia, a region of central Turkey. They formed a new movement based on what they claimed was the prophetic voice of God. Maximilla, Prisca, & Montanus led what we could call an early hyper-Pentecostalism that split the church.The Montanists’ central message was the soon return of Christ & the need for believers to get ready. They were to do so by a strict asceticism that included much fasting, eating only dry foods, (I guess moist food was sinful because it was too easy to chew) and the requirement to abstain from sex, even including marital sex. Montanists were encouraged to relish persecution; holding it to be a badge of genuine faith and loyalty to God.The Montanists presented such a challenge that Church leaders convened some of the Church’s first councils, known as “synods”, to decide how to respond to its growing popularity. It was decided that the excesses of the New Prophets were too extreme and they were excommunicated, though the specific reasons for doing so have been lost to us. All we know is that an official split occurred between the Montanists and the Apostolic Church. The split was so clear, when Christians and Montanists were both executed in the same arena, they died for the same God but tried to avoid being eaten by the same animals, lest their remains mingle in the belly of the beasts.Yeah, I know! It’s amazing how far Christians will go to carve themselves up into different groups. It’s nothing new. It’s been going on since their earliest days.If you live in an urban or suburban community, you likely drive around town and see several church buildings with different signs & labels. Christianity is a religion composed of not dozens à but hundreds of sects. And while services may be similar in many of those local churches, the can also differ widely in style, culture, values, & doctrine. For instance, some are sedate & composed, putting more emphasis on rationality and the centrality of the sermon or the practice of a liturgy. Others allow and may even encourage a more emotional encounter with God, so music & worship take a more active place in the service. I’m generalizing widely here. My point is that both churches may be packed with people attending because while they’re culture is on opposite ends of the spectrum, each appeals to a certain group of people. It isn’t that one is right & the other is wrong. They may both be either. The point is – people are different, so there are places for them to go to be brought closer to God.In studying the Montanists, I wonder if there isn’t a bit of this dynamic that happened with their success in certain places. You see, their leader, Montanus, before coming to faith in Christ was a priest either of Apollo or Cybele. The worship of both gods was marked by their priests & priestesses being given to ecstatic trances & urges. Whether these altered states of consciousness were induced by hallucinogenic drugs, extreme meditative rituals, or outright demonic activity – the person in ecstasy would enter a trance where  the eyes would roll up into the head, their bodies would go rigid, their voice would alter, & they’d make solemn pronouncements as though by the voice of a god.This was Montanus’ background. There’s a question about the genuineness of his conversion. Did he really come to faith or like some of the other aberrant groups at this time, did he see the rising popularity of Christianity and simply adopt some of its terms and forms while carrying on under his old practices? Did he just rebrand his demonically-induced ecstasies?That’s what some historians conclude. Some of what Montanus, along with Prisca & Maximilla went on to prophecy was goofy. But some of the charges leveled against Montanus reflected his practices BEFORE his conversion. It was his critics who accused him of making his post-conversion prophetic announcements in the old Cybelline trance-like state. Others said that he did NOT operate that way after coming to faith; that he renounced his pagan past. But that he, like his supporters, was someone who yearned for a more emotionally engaged & experiential faith & that the work of the Holy Spirit, so prominent in the earliest church, must not be forfeited. It was in danger of that very thing as the Faith had to contend with hostile government officials and an emerging mix of aberrant groups. All the energy by the church’s brightest leaders seemed to be going into the cerebral, the doctrinal, the apologetic – and this emphasis on the mind was numbing the heart of the Faith. The Montanists wanted to see the Holy Spirit active & present in the Church’s midst. Sadly, their claims to being the ESPECIALLY anointed led to excesses, and a discrediting of their movement – just as has happened in more recent times with the wild pronouncements & false prophecies of some of the hyper-charismatics.The decision to excommunicate the Montanists was anything but unanimous among Church leaders. Many believed that while the New Prophets had indeed gone too far in their excessive emphasis on asceticism, their renewal of the use of spiritual gifts was a return to the primitive version of Christianity practiced by the Apostles & described in the Book of Acts. The early Church father Tertullian, pastor of Carthage, began as a Montanist.What brought the Montanists into the greatest disrepute was the failure of some of their prophecies about impending events. This and their ultra-strict legalism earned them the label of being highly aberrant, if not heretical.Though it was right for Church leaders of the late 2nd Century to censure the Montanists for their excesses, they may have gone too far in labeling them “heretics.” Because the Montanists put such emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit, rejecting Montanism tended to put a damper on the exercise of spiritual gifts. An unfortunate turn at a time when Christians needed every bit of help they could get.In our next episode, we’ll consider what was probably the greatest doctrinal challenge to the Early Church; the heresy known as Gnosticism. This is an important subject because while Gnosticism was eventually defeated by orthodoxy and went into a long hiatus, it’s seen a revival in recent years due to the combined influence of modern novelists and some recent discoveries of their literature which critics of Christianity have latched on to in an attempt to muddy the waters on what original believers really believed. 

This 4th Episode is titled, “Martyrs.”Modern marketing tactics first produced, and now feed contemporary culture's obsession for “the latest thing.”  The slogan & label "New & Improved" is a frequent feature in packaging.The opposite was the case in 1st Century Rome. That Eternal City, and really most of the ancient world, was suspicious of anything new and novel, especially when it came to ideas. They had tremendous respect for tradition, believing what was true had already been discovered and needed to be preserved. Innovation was grudgingly accepted, but only in so far as it did not substantially alter tradition.The religion of the Greeks and Romans was sacrosanct precisely because it was ancient. Judaism, with its fierce devotion to only one God was incompatible with the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods, but it was tolerated by the Romans precisely because it was ancient.Also, while Jews were fiercely loyal to their religion & became violent when attempts were made to convert them to paganism, they were not, as a rule, engaged in making converts of others. Judaism is not, by nature, a proselytizing faith.Christianity's early struggle with Rome began in earnest when Judaism officially denounced the Christians and banish them as a movement within Judaism. This took place shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Until that time, followers of Jesus were considered as a kind of reform movement within Judaism. But toward the end of the 1st Century, Rome realized the Jews had divorced themselves from the Christians. Christianity was something new; a religious novelty; so, under suspicion.And whereas Judaism tended not to proselytize, Christians couldn't help winning others to their Faith. This brought Christianity into close scrutiny by the authorities. The more they investigated, the more concerned they grew. Like the Jews, Christians believed in one God. But their God had become a man. Christians had no idols, practiced no sacrifices, & built no temples. These were yet more religious innovations that fired suspicion. The Christians seem to be so reductionist in their practice they were suspected of being, get this à Atheists.As we saw in the previous episode, the paganism practiced by most people of the Empire in the 1st & 2nd Centuries wasn't so much a heart-felt devotion to the gods as it was a sense of civic duty. “Respect the gods by visiting their temples with the proper offerings, or, suffer their wrath.” à Well, every new convert to the Christians meant one less pagan throwing their appeasing bones to the watchful & increasingly upset gods. People began to worry the growing neglect of the gods would lead to trouble. And indeed, whenever a drought, flood, fire, or some other catastrophe ensued it was inevitably blamed on "Those atheists = the Christians."“Christians to the lions,” became a frequent solution to the ills of the world.The concern of the pagans was ill-attributed, but well-founded. Not because their gods were angry, but because in some places so many had become Christians the pagan temples were nearly empty.  Acts 19 tells us this happened in Ephesus and a letter from the Governor of Bithynia in the early 2nd Century repeats the concern. This led to a growing call for punishment of the Christians. A few would be rounded up and put to death to prove to the gods the earnestness of the pagans to appease them.Other factors that encouraged hostility towards believers was their secrecy. A description of Christians by Pliny, the Roman governor of Bithynia, to the Emperor Trajan in AD 111 is enlightening. Pliny had already executed some Christians based on little more than their scandalous reputation. He’d given them an opportunity to recant but when they refused, Pliny saw this rebuff of his mercy as a provocative stubbornness worthy of punishment. But after a flurry of executions, Pliny had 2nd thoughts: Was the mere reputation of Christians dangerous enough to warrant their arrest and trial? So he wrote his friend, the Emperor Trajan, asking for advice.  Here’s a quote from Pliny's letter. After describing some ex-Christians who recanted their faith, Pliny gives their report on what their practice had been when they were still Christians."They affirmed the whole of their guilt was that they were in the habit of meeting on a fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ as to a God, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to commit any wicked deeds; no fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it. After which it was their custom to separate, then reassembled later to partake of food — but food of an ordinary an innocent kind.”A little later in the letter Pliny adds that to verify this report he secured through the torture of 2 slaves that this was an accurate description of Christian meetings and that nothing more needed to be added. Pliny called Christianity a “depraved and excessive superstition.”Emperor Trajan replied to Pliny’s request for guidance on how he wanted the growing Christian-crisis in Bithynia handled. Trajan replied . . .“You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out. If they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.”Though seemingly harmless to us, it was Pliny’s reference to the Christians “meeting before dawn” that proved a problem. While it looks to us a commendable reference to their diligence & earnestness, it was highly suspicious to Romans. As a rule, meetings during the dark hours were forbidden. Day was the time for meetings. To meet at night was suspect. No good could come of it. You met at night because you had something to hide.So why DID Christians meet before daylight if it raised suspicions?The answer lies in the composition of their Fellowship; that is, who attended. For the most part, they were commoners and the poor who had jobs they had to begin early. The only time available to meet was before the workday began.These early meetings of the church were only open to Christians. Secrecy tends to breed gossip. It didn’t take long till wild rumors were going round about the abominable things the Christians must be doing. Their communal meal, called the Agape or Love-Feast, was recast by gossip as a wild and debauched orgy. Communion was said to be ritual cannibalism. But the real shocker was that when Christians met, social distinctions like rich and poor, slave and free, male and female, were subsumed under an appalling equality. Many critics of Christianity saw this as a dangerous subversion of the natural order. Christians were cast as radical revolutionaries out to turn the entire world upside down.For a society that lived in constant fear of a slave uprising, anything seen as encouraging slaves to think independently was deemed perilous. Don’t forget that for the Romans, the 3 Servile Wars, the last & most perilous led by the famous Spartacus, were still potent in the collective memory, though it had ended over a century before.Another source of trouble for Christians was their Jewish origin. Even though Judaism worked hard to distance itself from the followers of Christ, in the mind of the average Roman, the Church was a Jewish thing. In many places, Jews were the main accusers of Christians to the authorities. But this failed to dislodge Christians from their Jewish roots. The bloody and troubling Jewish Wars of the 1st & 2nd Centuries created great hostility between Romans and Jews, which spilled over onto Christians.During the 2nd & 3rd Centuries, believers were arrested and executed on no worse crime than being accused of being a Christian. Hauled before a judge, they were given the opportunity to recant. They could do so by invoking the names of some pagan deities, offering a sacrifice to the image of the Emperor, and cursing Christ. If they refused this threefold evidence of being a pagan, they were led off to execution.One story is illustrative. In the mid-2nd Century during the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, a woman became a Christian. Marital problems led to her divorce. Resenting her, the ex-husband accused her of being a Christian. She was arrested, along with her pastor, for being a co-conspirator with her in causing the changes that caused the divorce. The pastor's name was Ptolemaeus.The jailer was cruel & tried to force Ptolemaeus to turn from his faith. Ptolemaeus resisted and the day of his trial arrived. The judge, Urbicus, put it straight to him, “Are you a Christian?” Ptolemaeus admitted he was. Urbicus pronounced him guilty and Roman justice being swift, he was led off to immediate execution.As he was being led away, a spectator, Lucius by name, rose to speak. He challenged Urbicus’ decision. Lucius asked, "Why did you pass such a sentence? Was this man convicted of a crime? Is he an adulterer, a murderer, a robber? All he did was confess that he was a Christian!"The judge replied, "It seems you are also a Christian."Lucius answered, "Yes, I am.”Urbicus had the guards seize & haul him off to be executed along with Ptolemaeus.At this, a 3rd man rose, issuing a similar challenge. When Urbicus asked if he was also a believer the man admitted both his faith and disbelief that death could ensue for no more reason than identifying w/a name. But the point is this: Urbicus believed he was well with in his authority to execute all 3 of these men for no more reason than that they claimed to be Christians.This story, duplicated thousands of times throughout the Empire during the 2nd & 3rd Centuries drives home the fact that Christianity was poorly understood by the pagan world.There’s no sure way to know how many believers were put to death during the first 3 centuries. Rome didn't follow a consistent policy of persecution. Some emperors were lenient while others practiced virulent opposition. Ten of the emperors enforced an official policy of oppression & persecution; from Nero in AD 64, to the worst under Diocletian & Galerius in the opening years of the 4th Century. And even though some emperors enforced opposition to Christianity, their policies were rarely empire-wide. It was up to the provincial governors to implement the rule; many simply ignored it, seeing it as bad policy.Though estimating the number of martyrs is difficult, we can set it somewhere between 1 & 3 million over a period of about 250 years.Despite the threat of death, the Church continued to grow. As one oft-quoted church father put it, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” While the authorities remained ignorant of what Christians believed, many of the common people discovered what it was from conversation with them à and found it attractive. More than attractive, it was convincing, compelling, persuasive. They also came to faith, knowing that doing so might lead to the ultimate test.As the years went by and Christians were made the object of public shame by using them for entertainment in the gladiatorial games, more & more began seeing their neighbors and friends on the sand, waiting to be ripped apart by wild beasts. It became personal. And pagans who knew the martyrs to be level-headed, reasonable people of solid moral standing began to question the policy of Rome to hunt such people down.Slowly but surely a sea change began to swing public opinion away from persecution. By the dawn of the 4th Century, sympathy had eased the hatred of Christians whose resolute faith in the face of prolonged suffering had recast many as heroic.Shifting back in time now to the late 1st Century, let’s take a look at 3 Church leaders who followed immediately after the Apostles; Clement of Rome, Ignatius, & Polycarp. These 3 come from a group of Church leaders known as the Apostolic Fathers.Toward the end of the 1st Century, the passing of the original Apostles created a problem: Who would now lead the Church? Christians understood Jesus as the true head of the Church; but His lead was expressed through His direct disciples & those who’d been witnesses to His resurrection. Though recurring persecution was a consistent theme, the Church continued to grow. Who would guide it after the Apostles? A group now known as “the Church Fathers” provided that crucial next phase of leadership.Though Jesus warned His followers against giving any man the role of being a spiritual authority in contest with God, the label “father” was given to elders & leaders as a term of endearment & affection.  The Apostolic Fathers weren’t Apostles; they were just, you know = apostol—ic. Or may I make up a word and say they were apostol—ish. This came of their being the followers & students of the original Apostles who enjoyed a close relationship with them.The writings of the Fathers reveals a remarkable devotion to the Jewish Scriptures of the Tanach; what Christian now refer to as the OT.  Reflecting the influence of the original Apostles, the Fathers understood Christianity, not so much as a new religion but as the fulfillment of the Faith of the Jewish Patriarchs & Prophets.  They took this as a given; so there’s little attempt to define new doctrine in their writing. Their purpose was more to provide edification, correction, and comfort. We could say their work was devotional in flavor. It was pastoral, seeking to bolster the hope, faith & practical holiness of those they addressed.The Apostolic Fathers served at a time when the Church was growing dramatically & provided a radical alternative to the tired paganism that still dominated, but was slowly losing its grip on the Roman World. Their writings often honored martyrdom, occasionally elevated celibacy & laid great emphasis on baptism which the Early Church used as the singular mark of identifying as a follower as Jesus.The first Apostolic Father we’ll look at is Clement of Rome.Clement was born about ad 30 & served as the pastor of the church at Rome the last 9 years of his life, dying in the year 100. Paul mentions a Clement in Phil 4:3 and there’s a good chance this is the same man. Though he’s listed in the official records of the Church at Rome as the 2nd or 3rd Pope, that early in Church history there simply was no Pope, just the pastor of the church there.Clement is best known for the letter he sent the Corinthian church, dealing with some of the same problems the Apostle Paul spoke to in his correspondence with them. The Corinthian church was fractured into warring camps Clement tried to reconcile by reminding them of the priority of love, along with the call to patience & humility. What’s notable about Clement’s letter is the strong emphasis he placed on the need for Christians to honor & comply with their spiritual leaders as a way to maintain unity.Clement’s Letter to the Corinthians is the earliest piece of Christian literature outside the NT. For that reason, it’s of great importance to scholars as it gives us an idea of the mindset of Christian leaders and their view of the emerging faith.Clement quotes the OT often. He also makes numerous allusions to the writings of Paul, revealing how influential and well-accepted Paul’s letters were even at this early date. In his insistence that believers honor their spiritual leaders, he bases his appeal on a line of reasoning, the subtext of which, points to a widely accepted spiritual principle. It was this à Pastors & Church leaders had received their authority from the Apostles, who’d received their authority from Christ.  Much later, the Church at Rome would greatly expand on that idea of succession. But nothing in Clement’s letter gives substance to the idea that the church at Rome had jurisdictional power over other churches or over the Faith in general.The next Father is Ignatius, considered a giant among the Apostolic Fathers because of his martyrdom. Though the pastor of the church at Antioch in Syria, he was arrested & taken to Rome. During the journey, Ignatius passed through several cities where he was allowed to address the believers. In about AD 110 he wrote letters to 6 of these in which he stressed unity & how to combat heresy. The heresy Ignatius spoke of was an early form of Gnosticism. The remedy for dealing with heresy, & the surest support for unity, Ignatius said, was the presence of a strong pastor who could provide spiritual leadership.It’s a fairly reliable tradition that Ignatius was a student of the Apostle John & was affirmed in ministry by him. Ignatius was martyred in Rome, in the Colosseum by being fed to the beasts, during the reign of Trajan, in AD 108.What makes Ignatius’ writings important is his emphasis on the role of a single elder-pastor as the one to lead a local church.  While there are hints at this in the NT, there’s also a picture of multiple-elders who jointly share leadership.  It’s more by inference drawn from Paul & Timothy’s ministry that one may see the emergence of a lead elder who becomes what we might call the senior pastor. Ignatius’ letters spell this out and make a strong case for it.  He called the elders & deacons to follow the lead of that one among them God had set His anointing on to lead the church.The 3rd Apostolic Father we’ll look at sounds like a plastic fish.Polycarp’s story is fascinating. He also was a student of the Apostle John who became the lead-pastor at Smyrna, one of the cities to receive one of the 7 letters dictated by Jesus in Revelation. Polycarp wrote a letter to the Philippian church about ad 110 that’s filled with quotations from the OT & references to several other books that would later be included in the NT canon. Polycarp’s reliance on these books as describing the norms & beliefs of Christians indicates the early acceptance of those books that would later be made a part of the Bible. His use of them helped later Christians decide which books ought to be a part of the NT.Polycarp was arrested & put to death in AD 155. The manner of his death was so exemplary he was honored for generations as an example of martyrdom. When officials came to arrest him, he welcomed them into the house, asked if they’d like something to eat, and while they enjoyed a meal, went into another room where he composed himself thru prayer. When he rejoined the officers, his kind treatment shamed them in the task they’d been assigned.One of the many remarkable things about Polycarp was his advanced age. At 86, he was quite old for those days. At his execution, the magistrate pleaded with him, based on his age, to recant & save himself.  Earlier I said that recanting Christians had to go thru a 3-step process to prove their sincerity. At Polycarp’s trial, the official tried to make it easier for him & told him to simply say, “Away with the atheists!” meaning Christians, who because they believed in only 1 God, were considered god-less compared to the pagans who worshipped dozens of deities.  But Polycarp knew the official’s intent & pointed at the crowd that had gathered to watch him burn saying, “Away with the atheists.”When the magistrate pressed, pleading with Polycarp to recant his faith, Polycarp replied, “80 & 6 years I have served Him & never once did He wrong me. How then can I blaspheme my King Who saved me? Come, bring what you will.”The official couldn’t believe his offer of leniency was being rejected & grew stern. He warned, “Bless Caesar!" Polycarp replied, “Since you vainly strive to make me bless Caesar, pretending you don’t know my real character, hear me clearly - I am a Christian!  If you desire to learn of the Christian faith, assign me a day, and you shall hear.”Now enraged, the proconsul threatened, “I have wild beasts; and will expose you to them, unless you repent.”  Polycarp replied, “Bring them on."The magistrate fumed, "Since you despise the wild beasts, unless you repent I will tame you with fire." Polycarp said, “You threaten me with a fire which burns for an hour, and is soon extinguished; but the fire of the future judgment, and of eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly, that -- you are ignorant of. But why do you delay? Come, do what you please.”At that, the wood that had been heaped around him was set ablaze.The story of Polycarp’s martyrdom became a popular tale Christians shared for the next few centuries as countless more faced the prospect of dying for the Faith. Truth be told, a perverse veneration of martyrdom took root in the Church that saw not a few aspire to being put to death. When martyrs were elevated as heroes, it wasn’t long before some aspired to the station of hero and considered martyrdom a price worth paying. Sadly, they weren’t dying for Christ, so much as their own reputation & fame.

This week’s episode is titled "Strategic."We ended the last episode with a look at the different perspectives of 1st & 2nd Generation Christians. The debate centered on what role the Jewish law held for Jesus’ followers. Culturally-immersed 1st Generation Jewish believers tended to cleave to the law, while the more Greco-Roman acculturated 2nd & later generations adhered to the Gospel as articulated by the Apostle Paul.Keep in mind that Paul's arrival at the Gospel of Grace through Faith wasn't an easy journey. He began as a strict Pharisee, fanatically loyal to Moses & Jewish tradition. It was Paul who presided at the execution of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. And Stephen was put to death precisely because he dared to say that the new covenant Jesus inaugurated superseded the old covenant installed by Moses & represented by the Temple & priesthood in Jerusalem which were now effectively obsolete in God’s plan. This drove the Jewish ruling council into a literal rage that led to Stephen’s death.Paul well understood the arguments of the Judaizing legalists who advocated adherence to custom. He understood them because he’d once held them. But he came to realize faith in Christ alone bestowed the righteousness God requires. Salvation was not the product of human work; it was a gift God bestows, a gift received by faith.Amped by this realization of salvation by grace through faith, Paul was compelled to take the Gospel were ever he could. The book of Acts describes 3 journeys he took to spread the Faith & plant churches.On his 1st journey he and his friend Barnabas went to the island of Cyprus & the urban centers of the mainland north of there, a province called "Galatia" in modern-day Turkey.On his 2nd adventure Paul went back over the fledgling fellowships begun on the previous journey, then travelled to the West coast of Asia Minor. Taking ship, he sailed across the Aegean Sea and landed in Macedonia. The Gospel had arrived in Europe, possibly for the first time.Then Paul swung south into Greece where he visited Athens & other key Greek cities. Returning to his home base at Antioch in Syria, he didn't stay long before once again setting out on a 3rd mission with the aim of planting churches in strategic locations.Paul had a plan. He didn’t just go wherever the winds of fancy drove him. He was strategic, recognizing the need to plant congregations in influential cities. He knew if healthy churches could be set up in the urban centers of the Empire they’d act as jumping off points for mission work to their surrounding provinces. The strategy worked & Christianity spread rapidly.We’re not unaware of the religious and philosophical environment the early Christians lived in. Outside Israel, much of the Roman Empire was a spiritual hodgepodge. The Greek & Roman pantheon was ubiquitous, with most commoners paying homage to the gods, not out of any genuine piety or devotion so much as out of a sense of civic duty. “Respect the gods or pay the price" was the attitude of the common people. Everyone had a duty to throw the gods their proverbial bone now and then, lest they get angry & withhold the rain-or-send floods. No one wanted to be the cause of disaster, so most went through the forms to pacify the gods & keep them off the collective back. But heartfelt devotion to the gods was rare.Living alongside this kind of generalized respect for the gods was a much less common, but far more devoted adherence by some to the philosophies of a handful of Greek sages. Guys like Epicurus & Zeno. The concern of such philosophies was how to have the best life. Though their ideas often contradicted the demands of the gods, many who held to Epicureanism, Stoicism or one of the other philosophies saw no tension between their beliefs & religious practices.But by the 1st Century, many across the Romans world had grown disillusioned with the old gods & old ways. Desiring something new, mystery cults from Egypt & the Far East took root. Though the official stance of Rome was to oppose these cults, there was something enticing in what was considered forbidden. Secret knowledge, imparted only to an elite stimulated curiosity. The cults of Isis & Mithras grew.One message that appealed to some pagans throughout the empire was Judaism with its radical proposition there was only One, all-powerful, all-knowing God. The Jews had taken their Faith out of the merely religious realm & developed a comprehensive and coherent philosophy with it. It convinced many Gentiles who began attending Jewish synagogues located all over the empire. Not willing to fully convert to Judaism with its kosher requirements & circumcision, these "God fearers" as they were called, believed in the God of Israel & renounced the pagan deities of their neighbors.When the Apostle Paul visited a new city he typically went first to the local Jewish synagogue where he systematically showed Jews & God-fearing Gentiles that Jesus of Nazareth was the long hoped-for Messiah and that faith in Him brought salvation. While a few Jews believed, it was from among the God-fearing Greeks Paul had his greatest response. When unbelieving Jews rejected & opposed him, he left their synagogue, taking the new converts with him and starting a church.On Paul's 3rd journey he spent about 3 years in the city of Ephesus in Western Asia Minor. His work there was probably the most fruitful of his career.When he returned to Jerusalem after this 3rd church planting foray, he was arrested by the authorities & carted off to the Roman administrative capital of Caesarea on the coast. He spent the next couple years in prison as a political pawn between Jewish & Roman officials. To end the stalemate, Paul appealed his case to Caesar, which as a Roman citizen he had the right to do. A tumultuous sea journey saw him finally deposited in Rome where the book of Acts ends with him under house arrest, awaiting trial.There’s some question as to whether Paul stayed in Rome until his execution by Nero or if he was released and later re-arrested & executed. There’s good reason to believe the initial charges against Paul were dropped, he was released, visited the churches he’d planted earlier, then came back to Rome where he was arrested in Nero’s round up of Christians after the great fire that destroyed a large part of the City. Paul was then executed in AD 64.Let's end this episode with a look back at Jerusalem & the church there.Even though the 1st Generation believers adhered to the Mosaic law, the opposition of the Jewish authorities to the followers of Jesus grew until it broke out in official persecution.About AD 41 John's brother James was murdered at the order of Herod Agrippa, the Roman-installed ruler who was forever trying to curry the favor of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Herod knew the Council wanted to crush the new movement of Christians and thought to gain their good-will by getting rid of James. When he saw the favorable reaction of the Sanhedrin, he had Peter arrested as well. But before Peter could be executed, a miraculous prison-break set him free. Peter then left for an extended missionary journey through Syria, Asia Minor, Greece & eventually Rome where, along with Paul, he was also swept up in Nero’s purge.What comes as a bit of a surprise is to find in the NT that the church at Jerusalem was led by Jesus's brother James rather than one of the original Apostles. That the church leadership was assumed by James gives us a clue that the church was originally cast in the form of the Jewish synagogue, where leadership was usually passed to a relative.In AD 62, James was bludgeoned to death at the command of the high priest who was furious the Church kept growing despite the increased persecution coming against it. James’ death left the Jerusalem church leaderless & discouraged.During the mid-60’s, things in Israel became increasingly sketchy as tension between Jews and Romans grew. The completion of the Temple in 64 turned thousands of workers into an unruly & discontent mob. One inept decision after another by the Romans sparked a major revolt in 66. Though the Jews were able to pull off several astounding early victories over the Romans, the Emperor’s response was a brutal war of annihilation that crushed all opposition over the next several years.From the Jewish perspective, AD 70 was the year Christianity and Judaism officially broke. At the outset of the Jewish revolt, the Christians of Jerusalem were warned in a vision to flee the city. They did. But their fellow Jews considered this an act of high treason. Shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem, Jewish leaders used the Christians’ flight from Jerusalem as the basis to ban them from all synagogue services. Any Jew who wanted to remain faithful to his religion could no longer follow Christ. The break was now complete.As the Church became increasingly composed of Gentiles with little to no background in the Jewish roots of Christianity, this break would devolve into an antagonism that became hostile and violent. That historic hostility remains a blot on the Church to this day – and in the mind of many Jews, sadly hinders the message of the Gospel.

This episode of CS is titled – “Transitions”We ended the previous episode with Jesus on the cross just outside the walls of Jerusalem late Friday afternoon. The Jewish leaders & Romans thought that was the last of the enigmatic trouble-maker from Galilee. For that matter, His followers thought that was the end as well.If that HAD BEEN the end of Jesus’ story, how might history have labeled Him?Modern skeptics who consider the resurrection a mythic post-script, added by Jesus’ later followers, cast Jesus as a religious & social reformer; one whose goal was to turn the stiff formalism of 1st Century Judaism into a more personal & intimate faith in God. These skeptics recast the miracles attributed to Jesus as myths meant to explain the effect of His charismatic personality on others. They contend Jesus didn’t really turn a few fish & loaves into fish sandwiches for thousands; He merely used the generosity of a young boy to provoke the crowd to share with one another. He didn’t really walk on water, He merely came along the shore in a low lying mist. And He didn’t really rise from the dead; His example of love for God and others merely inspired the disciples to follow His example. His MEMORY endured, not His literal person; says the skeptic.So, WAS Jesus merely a reformer? Was His mission just to return Judaism to something Moses would have given a hearty thumbs-up to?While Moses would indeed endorse Jesus, He wasn’t merely one of the many prophets God sent to call people back to Himself. Moses would approve of Jesus because all Moses did pointed to & prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus was the original Former, not a RE--former; He was, the “I AM” Who spoke to Moses from the burning bush & commissioned him to lead Israel out of bondage, into the Promised Land.This becomes clear when we consider the words of Jesus at that last meal He shared with His disciples. When He took the cup to inaugurate the rite of Communion, He said something remarkable. “This is the NEW COVENANT in my blood which is shed for you.” Those young men sitting round that table could not mistake what Jesus meant, for it was something that had been burned into them since childhood. Jesus made claim to the cherished promise of the Prophet Jeremiah who in ch. 31 said,“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.  But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”Jesus laid claim to that promise, saying He was its fulfillment & what He was about to do in going to the cross would activate the New Covenant. Jesus didn’t come just to reform Judaism or refresh the covenant Moses mediated with Israel. He came to consummate that covenant and initiate a new, based not on the performance of the Mosaic Law, but on abiding faith in Him.Of course, if Jesus had remained in the tomb, He’d be nothing but a miniscule footnote to the history of the 1st Century, if that! à Just one more in a long parade of Jewish trouble-makers who had a little flurry of popularity among some malcontents. Nothing of consequence would have followed.But His resurrection changed everything. It turned His timid band of followers into men of unquenchable vision & voracious determination. Only the resurrection can account for the dramatic change that took place in those who’d followed Jesus.In writing to the Corinthians some years later, the Apostle Paul said that in His post-resurrection appearances, Jesus was seen by some 500 at one time—not just the original handful of disciples. It was this critical mass of witness that made sure the news of His resurrection wasn’t suppressed by the authorities. And it was the surety Jesus had been dead, then made alive that compelled His followers to remain faithful, even in the face of martyrdom.So, after a brief stint back in their home region of Galilee, the disciples permanently relocated to Jerusalem. It was reasonable that the center of their movement be at the heart of the Jewish world.Though Jesus said His followers would one day come from all over the world, those first believers had a difficult time seeing the Church as anything other than fundamentally Jewish. They met as a large group in the temple courtyard where they listened to the disciples teach on the life & words of Jesus. Because it was the way education was practiced in the 1st C, it didn't take long until a standard, stock story developed. This oral tradition formed the core of what was used by Matthew, Mark, & to a certain degree by Luke, when they wrote their Gospels. John already knew of those accounts & chose instead to write a story of Jesus that filled in some of the details not included in the official oral tradition.After the large group had listened to the teaching by the apostles, they broke into smaller groups to gather in homes where they shared a meal, prayed, & discussed what they’d just learned.There was little organization to this early movement of Jesus’ followers as they felt their way forward. Despite that lack of organization their faith blossomed & their community became marked by a remarkable love, attractive to others. Their numbers grew.They went by different labels. Some called them Nazarenes, meaning followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Others disparagingly called them "Christians" linking them to Jesus & His humiliating death on a Roman cross. They called themselves simply "People of the Way."The church grew in relative peace for a few years till their numbers became too large for the Jewish ruling Council, the Sanhedrin, to ignore any longer. As the apostles taught about Jesus, they realized a good part of what the Jews had been told their Scriptures meant was wrong. Some of the more bold believers began voicing their criticisms of contemporary Judaism. They ran afoul of the authorities & persecution began. When Stephen, a young Christian leader was executed for blasphemy, it sent a shock wave through Jerusalem. It was now clear Jesus' followers were under an official ban.While the 1st generation leaders, called “the apostles,” stayed in Jerusalem to tend to the needs of the Church, younger leaders moved to Samaria & Syria where they founded new communities. Churches sprang up in Damascus, Antioch, Egypt & other locales.These new communities, while still primarily Jewish in composition, were made up of Jews more acclimated to the Greco-Roman culture of the Mediterranean world than those in Jerusalem. When word reached the mother church in Jerusalem that new fellowships were springing up in other places, the apostles sent delegates to these new communities to establish a connection. One of the representatives they sent out was an elder named Barnabas. He visited the church in the Syrian capital of Antioch, 3rd largest city of the Roman Empire, with a population of a half-million. The church there was something new; a mixture of Jewish & Gentile believers. It was at Antioch the followers of Jesus were first called “Christians.”The readiness of Jewish believers at Antioch to welcome Gentiles into their fold shifted the focus of missionary activity from Jerusalem to Antioch. It was at Antioch that one man rose to leadership who would, next to Jesus, have the greatest impact on Christianity - Saul of Tarsus, or as he’s more commonly known, Paul.Paul's hometown was the Roman city of Tarsus, capital of Cilicia in what is today South Central Turkey, 20 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. The famous Roman General Pompey the Great had made Tarsus the center of Roman government in the area, granting its residents the treasured Roman citizenship. Tarsus was also a center of Greco-Roman culture. Paul was born to Jewish parents there, making him a unique mixture of Roman, Greek & Jewish. This all conspired to make him an effective instrument for spreading of the Gospel.After his early education in Tarsus, Paul moved to finish his training in Jerusalem under the great Jewish scholar Gamaliel. He became a member of the ultra-strict sect known as the Pharisees. Paul finished his training just as the followers of Jesus ran afoul of the authorities in Jerusalem. Whether Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin or merely their agent, it was he who presided at the execution of Stephen, lending those doing the deed their authority. Paul then embarked on a campaign to harass the Christians in the environs of Jerusalem. When the church there was effectively driven underground, he received official permission to carry his campaign of harassment to Damascus where rumors said Christians were thriving.But when Paul finally entered Damascus it was a very different man from the one who’d set out from Jerusalem a few days before. In a vision of the risen Christ, Paul realized Jesus was indeed the Messiah & the Gospel he’d been trying to stamp out wasn't a dangerous heresy; it was the Truth of God.When he returned to Jerusalem, the leaders of the Church were wary of him. After all, this was the guy who’d just ravaged them. But when it became clear he was a genuine believer, the apostles embraced him.Well à sort of.In reading the book of Acts & a couple of Paul's letters, we’re left with the impression while the core leadership at Jerusalem accepted Paul's conversion as legitimate, they preferred he find another church to attend. That church turned out to be Antioch where Paul partnered with Barnabas who became one of the leaders there.This would be a good place to talk a bit about the different perspectives on the nature of the Christian life that developed between Jerusalem & Antioch. Let’s call it the difference between 1st & 2nd Generation Christianity.1st Generation Christianity was thoroughly Jewish in orientation and centered in Jerusalem.2nd Generation Christianity was still officially headquartered at Jerusalem with the apostles as the authority. But the focus of activity shifted to urban centers outside Israel. An increasing number of Gentiles were now being won to the faith. As cultural Jews, 1st Gen believers continued to cast their faith in Jewish forms.They kept kosher, observed the Sabbath, circumcised their sons; that’s a Jewish, & not at all Gentile, sort of thing.2nd Gen believers counted the ritual aspects of the Mosaic law as having been meant to point to Jesus & consummated by Him. They felt there was now no need to engage in or observe such rituals any longer. A kosher diet, keeping the Sabbath, & circumcision weren't considered essential practices in following Jesus.What made things messy is that there was a protracted period of tension as 1st Generation Christians contended with 2nd Geners over the expected lifestyle of Jesus' followers.Even though Acts 15 sees the leadership of the church in Jerusalem deciding the matter in favor of the 2nd Generation position, diehard 1st Gen advocates continued to promote the idea that if believers wanted to have a God-approved lifestyle they had to adhere to the Mosaic law; whether Jew or Gentile. These "Judaizers," as they were called, proved to be one of the Apostle Paul's biggest trials. They dogged his steps, infiltrating churches he’d planted after he left, claiming they were there to complete what Paul had only begun. They sought to turn Paul's converts to Jesus à to Moses. Some of Paul's letters are eloquent & at times scathing rebuttals to the problems introduced by the Judaizers.The debate between 1st & 2nd Generation believers didn't end with the early church. It endures to this day. Modern-day Judaizers known as legalists insist on a set of behavioral guidelines as necessary to demonstrate genuine faith. Whether it be dress, diet, or devotion; a certain level of giving, service, or submission--rules are set up that prescribe the “acceptable” lifestyle. Such legalists see the preaching of grace as dangerous; a license to excuse sin.But the grace described in the New Testament is no license to sin. For Paul & those 2nd Generation Christians who carried the Gospel throughout the Mediterranean world, if someone genuinely believed in Christ, they’d been born again & WOULD demonstrate a new life commensurate with the life & teaching of Christ.The person who truly loves God can do as he/she chooses because he/she chooses to love God.That wraps up this episode. As we close, if you subscribe to CS via a podcast portal like iTunes or Podbean, head over to sanctorum.us to check out the CS site.

Discover the roots of the Christian faith starting from its Jewish origins. Explore how first-century expectations shaped perceptions of the Messiah amid Roman oppression. Learn about the explosive growth of early Christianity despite significant challenges. The host shares their mission to make church history accessible and engaging for modern audiences. Through historical reflections, they bridge the gap between past and present, ensuring a meaningful dialogue for both Christians and non-Christians.