Why Study Christian Church History PDF

Why Study the History of the Christian Church? Many evangelical Christians are fond of saying that “true Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.” It might be more accurate to say that it is not merely a religion, but it is indeed a relationship—with God the Father through his unique Son...

Why Study the History of the Christian Church? Many evangelical Christians are fond of saying that “true Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.” It might be more accurate to say that it is not merely a religion, but it is indeed a relationship—with God the Father through his unique Son Jesus Christ, and by extension, with his church. Unfortunately, too many who identify as Christian seem to accept that while their relationship with Christ is necessary, their association with the church is at best optional, at worst irrelevant. For some, the church is an anachronism, splintered by theological differences, characterized by judgmentalism, enmeshed in partisan politics, and lacking any will or ability to truly impact the problems and issues of modern society. And if one takes that view, it is perhaps understandable that one would not be terribly interested in devoting time to studying its history. But as birth initiates one’s entry into a human family, so the new birth initiates one’s entry into the church, God’s spiritual family. The apostle Paul says we “are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it,” and in another passage he describes us as “members of [God’s] household.” The apostle Peter calls us “the family of believers.” Christ loves the church dearly, even to the point of sacrificing his life for her. If we only think of the church as a flawed institution (and flaws there are!), we really miss the point. Though made up of people from every “tribe and nation,” the church is a household, a beloved family, an interconnected community with a divine purpose, the very body of Christ. Doesn’t it seem strange to think that we can have a relationship with Christ, and not with his body, the family he suffered and died for? It is that very connection that should give us some level of interest in knowing something of our spiritual family tree, our shared history and heritage. Just as the choices, however heroic or faltering, of our physical forebears often affect who we are today, so the choices of Christians in times gone by affect how we see our faith, ourselves, and our purpose in the world around us. Like any family tree, the picture of our shared history is not always triumphant, or even pretty. Church history has more than its share of political intrigue, power clashes, family feuds, cowardice, and just plain bad behavior. Fortunately, it also has more than its share of heroism in the face of tyranny, selflessness and self-sacrifice, peacemaking, social improvement, and taking the mission and message of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. Studying church history has other benefits, as well. History often repeats itself, and understanding the missteps of long ago can alert us to potential pitfalls on the path ahead. 4 Current perversions of the truth are often just recycled heresies of the past, but without any historical knowledge, it is difficult to be forearmed. The mistakes of the church are useful as cautionary tales, as are the errors of secular governments and institutions that opposed the church in days gone by. In those places and times where it seems that the church is under siege, we do well to understand the lessons of our spiritual forebears. There is much to be learned and remembered, even from the “internal” squabbles and schisms of the historical church. Just as reading the Old Testament helps to give us perspective on the New Testament and to see how God was at work to fulfill his covenant with Israel, so reading church history is a great way to see God at work in the world over the past two thousand- plus years and how God has been at work fulfilling his new covenant to both Jews and Gentiles. These next five chapters will give you an overview, a taste, if you like, of the history of the church. Our hope is that in devoting a little time to this topic, your view of the church will be enlightened and enriched. (Note: In the following articles, the authors pursue different agendas. The first article offers the reader an overview of the church during the first five hundred years following the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The second undertakes an overview of major themes occurring within the church during the political reign of Rome and its emperors. While the purposes of the two articles differ, there is some overlap in information.) The First 500 Years: Introduction and Overview In the early seventeenth century, the Lutheran theologian Georg Calixtus came up with a plan to reunite divided Christians. Lutherans, Reformed, Catholics, Orthodox—all agreed that the beliefs and practices of Christians in the first five hundred years were correct. Beyond all our differences, we should be able to come together based on this “500-year consensus.” This idea was rooted in the way Christians had historically appealed to the church fathers of the first few centuries as authorities. The Protestant Reformers, while questioning many aspects of traditional belief and practice, respected the church fathers highly and cited them as often as possible in support of their positions. More conservative Lutherans derided Calixtus’s suggestion at the time as too wishy-washy, but his concept of a “unified early church” has gained in popularity over the centuries. Many contemporary Protestants appeal to the “Great Tradition” of the early church as a basis for Christian unity, and the reforms of Vatican II in the Catholic Church were rooted in a return to early Christian sources. In fact, as modern scholars have pointed out, early Christianity was highly diverse. The idea that there was “one church” that later divided is an illusion arising from the fact that all existing Christian churches today are the heirs of one particular early Christian group, which called itself the “Catholic Church.” Scholars disagree on how quickly this version of Christianity became the dominant, mainstream form. But by the end of the second century, its basic outlines were in place. At the core of this early Catholic Christianity was a claim about who Jesus is: that he is the Son of God, who made heaven and earth. This may seem obvious to us today, but in the second century, it was anything but obvious. Most people, whether pagan or Jewish, believed that there was one single divine Being above and beyond all others, far removed from the mess and torment of this world. Between the supreme God and human beings stood rank on rank of heavenly beings (called “gods” and “daemons” in paganism, and “angels” in Judaism) who brought us knowledge of God. Many people saw Jesus in this light—as a heavenly being 5 who brings us the true spiritual knowledge that sets us free from this world of pain and sorrow and blood and death. (This interpretation of Christianity has often been called “Gnosticism.”) “Catholic” Christians, on the other hand, believed in the words of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 108), that “God himself [was] manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life.” Following the Gospel of John, Catholic theologians described Jesus as the “Logos,” the Word of God the Father, fully expressing God in the world. They preserved a paradox that they were not able to fully explain. But they were convinced that Jesus’ real, physical birth and death and resurrection were at the heart of God’s saving purposes for the world. Jesus did not simply teach us the way to God—he is the way. As Irenaeus of Lyons (late second century) put it, Jesus “recapitulated” all of human life, summing it up in himself and uniting it to God. This meant that the physical world mattered, and that to be a Christian involved concrete practices and membership in a disciplined community of believers. Baptism and the Eucharist were the two central ritual practices, one of them washing away sins and the other feeding believers with the heavenly food of Jesus’ glorified body and blood. Being a Christian meant, at least in some communities, giving up certain professions. It meant committing to a life of sexual purity and nonviolence. And it meant submission to the authority of community leaders. By the late second century, three ranks of clergy had developed: bishops (“overseers”), presbyters (or “elders”), and deacons (“servants”). Early on, it’s possible that in some areas (including Rome) there may have been no distinction between bishops and presbyters, though the letters of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107) testify that the distinction was important in some areas by the beginning of the second century. The bishop led the community and presided at the Eucharist, assisted by the council of presbyters. Irenaeus (late second century) argued against the Gnostics that bishops received their authority from the apostles, whom they had succeeded as leaders of the major Christian communities. The embodied, “incarnational” nature of Catholic Christianity had consequences for its relationship with the Roman Empire as well. The Romans did not care about people’s beliefs per se. What mattered was participation in the public rituals that held the empire together. Jews got a pass because of their ancient tradition. But Christians, once it became clear that they were in some way distinct from mainstream Judaism, came under suspicion as a cult. Their worship of a crucified criminal, of course, made them suspect, but what Romans found most disturbing was the stubbornness with which Christians clung to their identity. In the early second century, the emperor Trajan and his friend Pliny, governor of Bithynia in present-day Turkey, exchanged several letters about Christians. Pliny found them puzzling because none of their activities seemed actively malicious—he recognized that the stories many people told about orgies and cannibalism were slanders. But at the same time, he sentenced them to death for their “obstinacy” in asserting their Christian identity after being asked three times. This became standard Roman policy, leading the Christian apologist Tertullian to point out that Christians were treated fundamentally differently from all other criminals. While thieves and murderers were tortured to get them to confess, Christians were tortured to get them to deny their alleged crime. Following Pliny’s example, Roman authorities generally did not hunt Christians down. The persecution of Christians was sporadic and usually a response to popular outcry. Sometimes Christians actively sought martyrdom, since martyrdom was seen as the most perfect way to follow Jesus and a guarantee of one’s final salvation. Sometimes, as in the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas in North Africa in AD 203, they seem to have been rounded up to fill out a quota of victims for public “games” to celebrate the emperor’s birthday or some other occasion. Later, in the third century, as strong military leaders sought to restore the empire after decades of unrest and civil war, the persecution became more systematic. Decius, in the 250s, and still more Diocletian, in the early fourth century, did attempt to wipe out 6 Christianity through measures such as destruction of churches, arrest of clergy, confiscation of copies of the Scriptures and other Christian books, and forcing people to show a certificate saying that they had offered sacrifice to the gods. Both of these persecutions were relatively short-lived, however, and in 313, the joint emperors Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan offering general religious toleration. Constantine, who eventually became sole emperor, favored Christianity and identified himself with it, though he was not baptized until he was on his deathbed. Christianity did not become the sole official religion of the empire until the reign of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century. While the persecutions of Decius and Diocletian did not wipe out Christianity, they did create a huge problem for the church in the form of large numbers of “lapsed” people— those who complied with the government’s demands in one way or another. When Decius issued his edict compelling sacrifice in AD 250, many Christians obeyed immediately. Others sought ways to avoid the decree without actually sacrificing, such as bribing an official to give them a certificate. Under Diocletian, one of the most common “lapses” was handing over copies of the Scriptures. Again, some sought to avoid persecution without denying the faith by handing over other books (such as the writings of heretics), which the Roman authorities would take for sacred texts. Apostasy was considered one of the most serious sins a Christian should commit, and Christians had been debating for some time whether and how those who committed serious sins after baptism could be reconciled with the church. Hence, when Bishop Cyprian of Carthage, in the 250s, began to allow some repentant “lapsed” to receive Communion, many rigorous Christians in North Africa (along with a small group in Rome) 7 refused to accept his authority and founded their own church, dubbed the “Novatians.” Cyprian responded by arguing in his treatise “On the Unity of the Church” that those who separated themselves from the Catholic Church separated themselves from Christ, however pious and orthodox they might be in other respects. He clashed with Rome over his view that such people did not even have valid baptism. The Diocletian persecution led to another split, also in North Africa, this time over accusations that the new bishop of Carthage had failed to support imprisoned Christians during the persecution. The new “schismatics,” the Donatists, appealed to the example of Cyprian and claimed to be the true church. Against them, St. Augustine (354– 430) maintained the principle that the holiness and unity of the church came from the sacraments, not from the quality of church leaders. Even if the Catholic bishops were as sorry a lot as the Donatists claimed, God’s grace could still work through them. To separate from the church was to “break the bonds of charity”—it was an act of violence against the holy bride of Christ. That is why Augustine saw nothing inconsistent about calling in the assistance of the Roman authorities to compel the Donatists to return to unity through punishments such as fines and exile. Such actions were a form of “tough love” against people whose zeal for purity had caused them to sin against the love that should bind all Christians together. Constantine’s acceptance of Christianity as a tolerated and indeed favored imperial religion also brought to a head the long-standing question of just what Christians meant by referring to Jesus as the Son of God. That Jesus was in some sense divine had been beyond dispute for Catholic Christians since at least the second century. But as Christians became more concerned with working out the intellectual ramifications of their faith, it became increasingly urgent to decide just what they meant by this. One position that had been ruled out for Catholics was “Sabellianism” or “modalism”—the view that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were just names for one divine being, with no real, eternal distinction between them. A more respectable view was that the one eternal God expressed his thought at a moment in time as the “Word” or “Son,” who then began to take on an identity distinct from the Father and who functioned as an intermediary between the Father and creation. Around AD 320, a presbyter in Alexandria named Arius objected to a sermon by his bishop, Alexander, which he thought implied that there was really no difference between the Father and the Son (“Sabellianism”). Arius wrote to Alexander articulating his view that the Father created the Son at the beginning of time, and that the Son, while in a sense divine, was not eternal as the Father was. A deacon named Athanasius, who had recently written a treatise on “The Incarnation of the Logos,” defended the bishop’s position. The resulting controversy led to the calling of a council of bishops at Nicea, in 325, presided over by Constantine. The council affirmed the view of Alexander and Athanasius and condemned Arius and all those who agreed with him that “there was [a time] when the Son was not.” Rather, the Council affirmed, the Father and the Son are of the same “substance” (‘homoousios”). This did not end the controversy. Many Christians thought that both Arius’s position and the “homoousios” was wrong, and sought to maintain a middle ground, which they argued was the truly traditional position. After Constantine’s death, his sons tended to favor the “Arian” or at least “Semi-Arian” position. Only in 381, at a second council called by Emperor Theodosius in the new capital, Constantinople, did the “Nicene” position finally triumph. Theologically, the architects of this victory were the “Cappadocian” theologians, a group of closely related figures from southeastern Asia Minor: Basil, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, his sister Macrina, and their friend Gregory of Nazianzen. Nazianzen eventually became bishop of Constantinople and presided over the 381 Council. The Cappadocians were able to articulate more clearly than Athanasius had done the distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They also paid 8 more attention to the Holy Spirit, articulating a clearly Trinitarian theology. The Trinity would be, henceforth, the hallmark of orthodox or “Catholic” teaching. While the Trinity often seems to be a highly abstruse doctrine, the Arian controversy was not simply a quarrel about abstract metaphysics, but about the way in which human beings are saved. Athanasius’s treatise “On the Incarnation,” one of the most powerful summaries of Christian faith ever written, argued that sin had cut human beings off from our source in God’s life. By uniting himself to our nature and dying the death that we deserved to die as a result of our sins, Jesus overcame the powers of death that enslaved us and reconnected us to the divine life. To do this, Jesus needed to be fully divine. Similarly, the great Cappadocian Gregory of Nyssa suggested that Jesus rescued humanity from the jaws of Satan by hiding his divinity as a “hook” inside the “bait” of his humanity. As the great Easter homily by John Chrysostom (347– 407) put it, “Hades... seized a body, and, lo! it encountered heaven; it seized the visible, and was overcome by the invisible.” Trinity and incarnation were important for early Christians because it was in the union of Jesus’ humanity and divinity that we, sinful and mortal as we are, encounter the divine life that saves us. The great North African theologian Augustine modified the picture for Western Christians by his darker view of human sinfulness and helplessness and his teaching that God sovereignly chooses some people from the “condemned mass” of fallen humanity. But his understanding of how the incarnation saves us remained fundamentally the same as that of his Greek-speaking counterparts. After AD 381, the focus of doctrinal debate shifted from the relationship between Father and Son to the relationship between humanity and divinity in the incarnate Son. There were two basic ways to approach the incarnation, traditionally identified with the two great intellectual centers of Antioch and Alexandria respectively. The “Antiochenes” saw the incarnation as a union between the man Jesus and the eternal Logos. In the incarnation, the Logos united himself to a particular human being. The “Alexandrians,” on the other hand, saw the incarnation as the act of the divine Logos taking on humanity, with less emphasis on the individual humanity of Jesus. The controversy began before the first Council of Constantinople with the ultra- “Alexandrian” teaching of Apollinaris that the Logos united himself to a human body and “animal soul,” so that the divine nature of Jesus replaced the human “rational soul” that other people possessed. Gregory of Nazianzen responded that anything the Logos did not “assume” in the incarnation was not saved. Early in the fifth century, Bishop Nestorius of Constantinople defended the “Antiochene” position, denying that it was proper to call Mary Theotokos, or “God-bearer.” While the one whom Mary bore was God, Mary was not the mother of God but only of Christ. Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, denounced Nestorius as a heretic. To say that Mary did not give birth to God was, Cyril argued, to say that the Logos and the human being Jesus remained essentially distinct, which, again, would mean that humanity was not truly united to God and thus not saved. Cyril persuaded the Council of Ephesus (431) to condemn Nestorius, though Nestorius protested that he had been treated unfairly and that Cyril had dominated the Council. Nestorius was deposed from his position as bishop of Constantinople, and his ideas were rejected within the Roman Empire, although his followers continued to flourish in Persia and spread Christianity throughout central Asia as far as China. One of the fiercest opponents of Nestorius within the church of Constantinople was a presbyter named Eutyches. Following language used by Cyril, Eutyches taught that there was “one incarnate nature of God the Logos”—that while humanity and divinity were separate in the abstract, in the person of Jesus they were united so as no longer to be in any sense distinct. He was condemned by the bishops of both Antioch and Constantinople, but a second council, held at Ephesus in 449, led by the bishop of Alexandria, reversed the condemnation and 9 instead condemned Eutyches’s opponents as Nestorians. As in the Trinitarian controversy, the accession of a new emperor turned the tide, and the Council of Chalcedon in 451, heavily influenced by a letter (the Tome) written by Bishop Leo of Rome, condemned Eutyches and affirmed that Christ had one “hypostasis” or “person” with two natures, divine and human. The Christological controversies would continue for another two centuries, with various attempts to reconcile the supporters of Chalcedon with their “miaphysite” opponents. The “miaphysites” were strongest among the non-Greek speakers in Syria and Egypt, and the Armenians and Ethiopians also adopted this position outside the empire. Today, these Christians are referred to as “Oriental Orthodox” as distinct from the Chalcedonian “Eastern Orthodox.” In 434, at the end of the first major phase of the Christological controversy, and shortly after the death of Augustine of Hippo, the Latin theologian Vincent of Lerins wrote a book called the Commonitorium, attempting to provide a method for distinguishing doctrinal truth from error. Orthodoxy, according to Vincent, was that which was taught “always, everywhere, by all.” Scripture was the primary rule of faith, but on points where the meaning was in dispute, one should follow the teaching with more claim to antiquity and universality, particularly as witnessed by the councils of the church. Vincent’s principle has been often quoted, and is probably the source of Calixtus’s appeal to the first five centuries. But it is easier to repeat than to apply. Ironically, he was an opponent of Augustine’s ideas about grace and free will, which were indeed innovative in many ways and quite different from the ideas common in the Eastern Church. Yet Augustine’s brilliant and creative theology would carry the day in the West, so that even to this day many Christians think first of Augustine when they think of the church fathers. However complex the application of Vincent’s principle (or Calixtus’s reworking of it) may be, the first five centuries of Christian history remain a common reference point for the many churches descended from the early Catholic Church. The Creed formulated at Nicea and revised at Constantinople remains the most universally accepted summary of basic Christian doctrine. And the theologians of the first five centuries remain sources of renewal for Catholics, Protestants, and Eastern Orthodox alike. Underneath the many varieties of Christian faith is the fundamental narrative that in Jesus Christ, as the fourthcentury hymn writer Ephrem the Syrian put it, God has imprinted himself on humanity as a seal is stamped on wax, and that, as the Orthodox Easter liturgy expresses it, Christ has overcome death by death and has given life to those in the tombs.