Complete Course Notes - Ancient Church PDF

HISTORY OF CHURCH AND THEOLOGY ANCIENT CHURCH Pro manuscripto M. Lamberigts 1  INTRODUCTION Why Study Early Church History? For an astonishing number of students, the study of the K...

HISTORY OF CHURCH AND THEOLOGY ANCIENT CHURCH Pro manuscripto M. Lamberigts 1  INTRODUCTION Why Study Early Church History? For an astonishing number of students, the study of the Kennedy administration passes for history. Every year one has the pleasure of hearing that Thomas Aquinas was the successor of John XXIII, that somewhere in history Punches Pilot was very important, that (because of economy's influence?) biblical profits exist, that Oedipoes was a patient of Freud, and most of the scholars are surprised hearing that there also exists a quest of the hysterical Jesus. However, there are some church historians who still dare to believe that what they are doing is of importance. It is a good thing that they are convinced of the importance of their scientific work, but the point is that these historians must convince not themselves but the others as to why one should study Early Church History. Thus why do we take up the study of Early Church History? Being convinced that only few, maybe nobody of our audience will ever become a patristic scholar (- this field is a specialized field and like all such fields, the province of only a few -) one still has the duty to prove that the study of this period of Church History is important and that even a passing acquaintance with it is worthwhile. In my opinion, Early Church History is telling a story with some romance and adventure. Already the start of Christianity is fascinating: the 2 Church starts with the Pentecost. A frightened group of disciples is wondering what will happen to them. (Its struggle in order to win the outside world before the second coming: what a challenge!) Who can believe that such a small group dares to start an epic struggle with the most powerful Empire of the ancient world. The new movement will reach its high point with the conversion of that Empire to the new faith, but, only one age later, at least in the West, this movement is confronted with the gradual decline of a great civilization and the emergence of a new world. Within this large picture, one will be able to see many smaller but interesting themes. One has only to think of the establishment of the New Testament Canon. Trying to be relevant: biblical profit? No! When I speak of Ancient Church History, I speak of History, not of antiquarianism. Antiquarianism is in fact nothing more than the study of the past for its own sake. I am deeply convinced that history has always had contemporary implications. Good study of history enables us to better understand the contemporary world. The Church History presented here aims at being open to ecumenism. Furthermore, there is a strong belief present that the Church is the whole people of God, saints and sinners, lowly and insignificant, educated and illiterate. One must be interested in all members of Christianity, e.g. in women, who do more than decorate altars. Attention must be paid to Gnosticism and the results of current research in this field. Gnosticism is to be recognized as a powerful, spiritual as well as intellectual movement not only in the second century, but also in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The same concern must be present in case of the so-called heresies. One will certainly not forget the importance of the social situation: Jesus's concern for the poor, Paul's collection in order to help the poor of Jeruzalem, Rome's attitude towards the poor (a subject of praise at the end of the second century), and Julian the Apostate's complaint that “the impious Galileans 3 (=his name for Christians) support not only their own poor but ours as well”.1 Another argument in favour of the topic under attention is the fact that Christianity is an historical religion: it is Christian belief, based on the Old Testament that God acts in human history. From the opening verses of Genesis to the closing verses of the Apocalypse, the Bible affirms the created world as a theatre of divine activity. Finally, one may not forget that this our Church is also the communion of saints. This means that there is an organic link between the Christians of different generations. The least we owe to our predecessors and of course to the founders is some knowledge about them and their world.2 1. J. STEVENSON, Creeds, Councils, and Controversies. Documents illustrating the History of the Church AD 337-461. Revised with additional documents by W.H.C. FREND, London, SPCK, 1989, p. 57. 2. J. KELLY, Why Study Early Church History?, in Early Christianity. Origins and Evolution to AD 600. In Honour of W.H.C. FREND. Edited by I. HAZLETT, London, SPCK, 1991 was of great help in the preparation of my “State of the Union”. 4  PART I ANCIENT CHURCH HISTORY I. WHAT IS PATRISTICS? The origin of the name “Father”(cf. pater) is an ecclesiastical one. The name `Father' was given by members of a Christian community to their leaders as a kind of expression of love, admiration, and respect. “Father” also refers to the relation between the teacher and his students, which is often considered to be a father-son relation.3 It may be remembered that the term papa – “father” - is used as name for Cyprian, bishop of Carthage.4 From the fourth century on bishops of previous times are called “Fathers”, i.e. testi- monies of the ecclesiastical doctrine. They were considered to be at the beginning of tradition. Although most of the Fathers were bishops, there is one exception: Jerome. Patristics thus is that branch of theological study which deals with the writings of these patres. Although the title Fathers is sometimes given to important Christian writers of all ages down to the thirteenth century, in most of the cases one will think of those teachers who wrote between the end of the first century and the close of the eight century. The study of Patristic literature is closely allied both with Church history and with the history of the early doctrine, since this literature is the chief evidence both for the events and for the ideas of these times. 3. See IRENAEUS, Haer. 4,41,2; CLEMENS ALEX., Stromata, 1,1,3. 4. See Ep. 8; 30; 31; 36. 5  The Fathers did lot for the promotion of Christianity. They defended the Gospel against heresies and misunderstandings. They wrote extensive commentaries on the Bible, on doctrinal and practical questions, published many sermons. They exhibited the meaning and implications of the Creeds. They recorded past and current events in Church history, and they related the Christian faith to the best thought of their age.5 A remark must be made concerning the language of the Fathers. Christianity began as a Greek movement and remained mostly Greek up until the end of the second century. During the first centuries of the Empire, Greek had spread throughout the Mediterranean. Hellenistic civilization and literature had made such a thorough conquest of the Roman world that there was hardly any town in the West in which the Greek language was not in everyday use. For this reason Greek must be regarded as the original language of patristic literature. Later, it was partly superseded in the East by Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian and entirely displaced in the West by Latin. The authors of the N.T.-writings as well as the Greek Fathers did not write in classical Greek but in the koinè. Koinè is a compromise between the literary Attic and the popular language. It has become the language of the entire Hellenic world from the third century B.C. to the end of Christian antiquity. Latin Christian literature had its beginning in the second century, then the Bible was translated in this language. Most scholars thought that North Africa was the cradle of ecclesiastical Latin, that the Acts of the Martyrs of Scilli (ca 180) represented the oldest Christian documents in Latin, and considered Tertullian to be the creator of an ecclesiastical terminology of the West. Today we know that already fifty years before Tertullian composed his 5. Patrology was often used with the same meaning as patristics, but thoday it seems to be in current use for a systematically arranged manual on the patristic literature. 6 writings and thirty years before the Acts of the Martyrs of Scilli were written, the transition from Greek to Latin had begun in Rome, in the Christian communities of this city. For indeed, the Letter of Clement to the Corinthians was translated into Latin at Rome in the first half of the second century. In this text, a Latin version of the Old Testament, which was already in existence, is used. Some Further Literature B. ALTANER-A. STUIBER, Patrologie. Leben, Schriften und Lehre der Kirchenväter, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 19788. J. KELLY, Why Study Early Church History?, in Early Christianity. Origins and Evolution to A.D. 600. In Honour of W.H.C. Frend. Edited by I. HAZLETT, London, 1991, pp. 3-13. J. QUASTEN, Patrology I: The Beginnings of Patristic Literature, Westminster, Maryland, Utrecht, Brussels, 1950, pp. 1-22. 7 II. CONTEXTS AND ORIGINS &1. The Roman Empire In 31 B.C. the Roman Empire was born as a successor of the Roman Republic. In this year Octavian, great-nephew of Julius Caesar, defeated his arch-rivals: Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. Octavian became the master of the Roman world, although he was only 32 years old. Octavian became the emperor of an exhausted world, bleeding from years of civil war (44-31). He had to restore the Empire and to elaborate a new system of government. Octavian was a man with a remarkable political insight, thus he assumed control over the army, the senate, and the treasury, in fact the major powers in the Empire. This decision was the end of the Republic for everything came under his control, but it was also the beginning of an Empire that would endure five hundred years. Octavian received from the Senate the title of Augustus, a title, semi-religious in tone, and underlining the emperor's supreme status in the Roman world. Augustus became emperor of an enormous Empire: from Brittany to Egypt and the Netherlands to Marocco, an Empire that even continued to grow under his successors. One may think of Britain, Mesopotamia and Eastern Europe. Within this Empire, sixty to seventy million people lived here (Celts, Berbers, Italians, Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Arabians, etc.), showing an enormous diversity of customs, languages, and traditions, and also of local deities. 8  However, one must emphasize the important areas of unity. The first area considers the language. Latin, in fact, was the official language in the Western part of the Empire, with Greek in the East. The knowledge of these two tongues alone could carry a person all the way from Britain to Mesopotamia. All government business and legal matters were conducted in Latin and Greek. In the army of the Empire, only one language was spoken: Latin. The second area of unity is without doubt the legal system. The Romans were the best in the field of jurisprudence. As early as 450 BC they had begun codifying the basic principles by which their society would operate. In the beginning, Roman law was associated with religious practice but gradually, it became a science of its own, for indeed, the contacts with the many peoples conquered by the republic forced Roman lawmakers to formulate broad conceptions of the rights and duties of mankind. A third area of unity is in the field of architecture. The Romans built a marvellous and elaborate network of roads, bridges, tunnels and aquaducts. In this field, they were the absolute leaders. The Romans made roads from the very beginning of the expansion of the Empire onward. The Romans thought that military success would happen only if soldiers could march quickly and efficiently to enemy territory. As early as the third century B.C., Roman engineers started to produce paved roads, undergirded by foundations four feet deep, capped with cobble stones or smooth flagstones. Because speed was the essence, Roman roads run very straight, especially in open countryside: 250.000 miles of Roman roads were spanning the Empire! a. Roman Society Society in the ancient world was primarily agricultural. More than 9 90% of the inhabitants lived in the countryside. As a result, the values were deeply conservative and highly patriarchal in tone. Innovation and change were regarded with suspicion: courage, hard work and loyalty had conquered the world, not changes! The family was the centrepiece of Roman society. It was the place were children learned to worship their ancestors and to honour their parents. The death masks of deceased relatives hung inside the home as watchful keepers of the genius, the guiding spirit of the household. Tombs were the place of annual solemn feasts in memory of the departed. The president of the household was the pater familias, the father of the family. He possessed absolute power over his wife, his children, and his slaves. Even in cases where his children had become adults, they still were subjected to the father's authority. The same was also true for the married daughters: they were still subjected to his authority unless the father specifically had made provision otherwise. The pater familias' wife was considered to be the keeper of the hearth and home. The wife's life was circumscribed by her husband and culture. In many ways, the woman's existence was much more precarious than the man's. Indeed, infanticide, especially of female children, was acceptable in Roman Society. The gift of a dowry in order to be married, was a nightmare for most fathers. The grain dole was given exclusively to males. Women could not vote and had no place in the government. On the level of education, it is noteworthy that in the ancient world only middle-class and well-to-do parents could afford to educate their children. Within this smaller group, only boys were encouraged to study, esp. rhetoric. Rhetoric was in fact the crown of one's education and played a very important role in politics. One may not forget that the forum and the marketplace were the places people lived. 10  Girls only studied until the age of twelve years. Then they were expected to cease their studies and to marry by the following year. Women had to marry very young and to bear children. This was the expected, honourable, and virtually only option open to them. One will not be suprised hearing that a lot of them died in childbirth, for their bodies were unable yet to bear the pain. Also many older women died in childbirth. Lower-class women and female slaves had to go out and work to earn their living. Slave women had jobs as nurses, maids, spinners, weavers, etc. Lower-class women often became local shopkeepers, fishmongers, and butchers. However, for most people in the Empire, male or female, life was not easy. Only about 2% were wealthy, 8% belonged to the middle class, but about 90% lived virtually in a rather difficult situation. The wealthey were stupendously wealthy: e.g. Augustus himself owned all of Egypt and of course other vast estates and plantations dotted all over the Empire. The poor lived either in the cities or sought employment as tenant farmers on the estates of the rich. The coloni worked the land and paid their rent with a percentage of their harvest or with their labour. That rent and taxes were an additional burden, is not a surprise. Some, however, with talent, ambition and, of course, a bit of luck, could go far in Augustus' time. The two ways par excellence to succes were civil service and the army. In the civil service jobs were growing very fast when Augustus became emperor. People were needed to supervise the grain dole, the fire department, the police department, the water supply, the street cleaning and the upkeep of public buildings. Also in the provinces, the work was enormous: tax-collections, oversee supplies for the army, the managing of the emperor's private estates, the supervision of the imperial postal system and the control of roads and bridges. In the army, the rewards were less spectacular, but also there one could 11 make a career. The legionaries were recruited from the older, more civilized provinces and served for twenty years. During the early days of the Empire this was a hard life (wars in Germany and the Balkans), but thereafter, peace reigned in most parts of the Mediterranean for almost two centuries. As a result, the legionaries spent their time building roads and houses instead of fighting. Legionaries were forbidden to marry since they might be transferred at a moment's notice, so most soldiers took up with local women near their camp and had children with them. After retirement the soldiers often received land and/or money, and thus often remained in the area with their family. This system had many The government could count on its ex-soldiers in times of crisis. The frontier towns gradually became more Romanized through their presence and the veterans themselves lived quite well off on their discharge stipend. It will be evident that Rome was the place to be. Rome, the capital, the home of the Gods, the nerve-centre of the government, the place where at least 500.000 people lived together, the city where life was a continuous torture for the poor (always noise). In sum: Rome, the place to be! Of course, the wealthy lived much better than the poor in Rome. They were free, had everything they wanted, and could eat what they wanted. The extravagant way of eating is known: no bird was too exotic to eat, no spice too distant to find, no pastry too delicate to concoct. All was there: silver platters, thrushes topped with a tasty sauce, cleverly ensconced in handmade nests, roasted peacock, etc. The poor had to eat very simply: bread, fruit, vegetables. Meat was eaten very infrequently because of its expense. Everyone drank wine, with water to dilute it to taste. The aristocrats had fine wines to their disposal: Rhineland, Gaul... The poor had to drink Italian wines, but, rich or poor, a Roman would never drink beer or milk; those were the drinks of the barbarians! 12  Rich or poor, all went to the theater. At one p.m. the working day was over, then, many people visited the baths, relaxing in steam rooms, enjoying a massage, swimming in hot and cold pools. In these baths, e.g. those of Diocletian, one could find a library, lecture halls, bars, restaurants, lovely gardens etc. Since the admission was very cheap, even the poorest could partake. The spectacles were loved by the Romans: wild beasts hunts, gladiator fights, comedies, tragedies, chariot races (the Circus Maximus had 160.000 seats) were open to all. Who was waiting for Christ? b. The Later Roman Empire For 200 years, the Mediterranean world basked in the glow of peace and prosperity: Rome seemed to be indomitable. The gods smiled daily on her, but in the middle of the second century Marcus Aurelius spent most of his reign on campaign in the East against swarms of barbarians. He was the winner but his victories were hard-won. In addition to this, the Empire suffered a series of shocking disasters in the third century: inflation, famine, wars (cf. Goths, Persians). Moreover people lost faith in the government: rebellions, emperors and counter-emperors, who could trust whom? In the space of 70 years, 27 different men were officially proclaimed emperor, but most of them were killed by their own troops, two committed suicide and only four died a natural death. The year 260 was a year of absolute crisis. The emperor himself was defeated in a battle by the Persians. He was made prisoner and came never back: Rome, what's happening? It is typical of Rome's history that the revival was realised by an Illyrian general: Diocletian (end of the third, beginning of the fourth century). Diocletian was convinced that his Empire was too big and that a split was required. Thus he divided the empire into two parts: an Eastern part and a 13 Western part. He himself became emperor of the East, Maximian of the West. Both possessed an absolute autonomy. Diocletian was also well aware of the fact that he needed a more flexible army. The barbarians were amassing along the Rhine and the Danube, threatening to burst into the Empire at any moment. Diocletian decreased the number of troops in each legion, placed the new legions more evenly along the borders, and instituted the cavalry in order to have a flexible attack force. Diocletian halved the Empire, but also succeeded in doubling its bureaucracy, and bureaucracies are very expensive to maintain! Moreover the reorganization of the army and the recruitment of new troops placed an added strain on the economy: taxes, taxes, taxes. So Diocletian caused, in fact, a very fundamental crisis. When coloni could not pay their taxes and felt deeply into debt, many of them abandoned their lands and either indentured themselves to affluent landlords or simply ran away. Diocletian ordered thus the local town councillors to pay personally out of their own pocket any taxes defaulted on by neighbouring farmers. These local councillors had, despite wars, plagues, and famine, continued to be responsible for the upkeep of their town: water supply, baths, temples, forum, roads, public postal system etc. What had once been a honour, had become a burden. Public office was equal to financial ruin. In the early fourth century A.D., Constantine declared certain jobs to be hereditary. Constantine needed guarantees, for the Empire had to be defended, grain had to be shipped from Africa to Rome, bread had to be baked for the masses. Therefore all jobs connected with shipping, baking, farming and the military became hereditary. Those who shunned their destiny were punished severely. Perhaps most harmful of all in the later Roman Empire was the tendency to allow barbarians to settle within the Empire's boundaries and to join the army. The enemy without became the enemy within. One must realize that since the second century BC, German tribes had clustered on the 14 banks of the Rhine and the Danube and that they had seen this magnificent civilization. In the fourth century, these barbarians were pushed by the Huns from Central Asia and, of course, by their own desires. If Rome won the war, things remained as they were, but often, however, the barbarians were the winners. They wrested steep concessions from the Empire: gold had to be paid each year or land had to be given to settle on. With the decline of the Empire's population, it happened that the German settlers began signing on with the Roman army. This led to a gradual barbarization, and already in Constantine's era, even the officer corps counted barbarians among its members. These barbarians were in general trustworthy and good soldiers. But in the end, the Western part of the Empire could not sustain itself against all the attacks. Military defences were stretched to the breaking point, city life collapsed, the sturdy Roman farmer disappeared, a loser in his struggle against taxes, misery and despair. The last Emperor, Romulus, 6 years old, was deposed by a Goth, Odoacer, in 476. Thus barbarians became the new kings of Rome. Only Christianity remained. Texts related to this section: The Vision of Constantine, in Eusebius, The Life of Constantine, 28-32; 47- 49. Lactantius, The Death of the Persecutors, 48 Zosimus, Historia II,28-35. Procopius, Secret Life, 27. 15 &2. The Birth of Christianity According to A. Segal, Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World, Cambridge, Mass., 1986, Christianity is to be seen as one of twins born to the Judaism of the Second Temple period, the other being Rabbinic Judaism which emerged in the Academy at Jamnia after AD 70. The Judaism of the Second Temple period runs from the return from exile in Persia in the late sixth century BC and the re-establishment of a Jewish State to the destruction of the temple in AD 70. In this year, much of Jerusalem was destroyed. Especially the destruction of the temple of Herod was considered to be a great loss. Judaism was in serious decline in the first century AD. Rome had established control over the Mediterranean, bringing Palestine under its control in the 60s BC. During the reign of Herod the Great (27-4 B.C.), the region had become very prosperous. Herod had built many new buildings in Jerusalem. Moroever, thanks to the building of Caesarea Maritima, a seaport, he had give an important impulse to trade. This Roman presence and the economic prosperity, related to it, was a challenge: were the Jews able to maintain an independent Jewish state, running in accordance with Jewish laws? This question was very important for what is typical of the Judaism of the Second Temple period is that its religion is thoroughly national. We all know that this conflict between Jewish ideals of a national, independent Temple-state and the desires of powerful neighbors to control the Middle East was tragically resolved at the end of the first Jewish revolt (AD 66-70). After 70 AD, the national religion produced on the one hand a communal form of piety, a piety that developed at home, in the local community and that focused on communal and private prayer, the reading and interpretation of the Scriptures, in sum, the Rabbinic Judaism. On the other 16 hand a dynamic missionary movement came into existence, a movement that within fewer than three hundred years would be adopted as the official religion of the Empire. It is evident that this split was already prepared before the fall of Jerusalem. Christianity, according to Segal, emerges from the preaching of a Galilean millenarian prophet and his followers. The most prominent of these followers was Paul. He had never known Jesus Christ, but his entry into Christianity was occasioned by a vision or a call-experience which led him to abandon his Αpersecution≅ of Christianity and to join the ranks of its wandering preachers. The Rabbinic Judaism had its roots in the Pharisees of the Second Temple. Its origins went back at least as far as the Maccabean revolt of the second century BC and the development in the Pharisaic movement from politics to piety, i.e. from a Temple-cult to a local assembly. What are the strengths of Segal's hypothesis? First of all it relates the origins of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism to the history both of the Second Temple Judaism and of the wider Mediterranean world. It also draws attention to the competitive nature of early Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism: both seek to reshape Jewish traditions and to create a new community after the destruction of Jerusalem. Segal's hypothesis makes also clear the continuity in Judaism before and after Jerusalem's fall. However, this hypothesis also contains some problems: there is a certain neglect of the wider political history of the time and also of other complex cultural forces. One has to admit that Judaism itself is more complex than presented by Segal. While an idea of continuity and unity is an attracting one it does not take into account that several of the Αconnections≅ were more incidental. The picture must be nuanced. Judaism in the first century, the Αmother≅ of Christianity, was itself a 17 very diverse phenomenon springing, however, from a common stock. Features of this stock were the fundamental belief in Jewish election, the making of a Αcovenant≅ between God and his people and the giving of the land to the Jews. The Law was recognized as regulator of the relationship between God and his people and between the members themselves. The priests administered the Law and the worship of the Temple, a task which was also prescribed and regulated by the Law. These convictions as such could be understood and recognized as the basis of all the people's belief. One has immediately to add that there are variations in these beliefs and that beliefs as such are not the only unifying factor. Other elements are e.g. a shared history, a shared attachment to a particular territory, a common descent6, and a common experience of the mystery in the worship of the Temple and popular festivals. Even in cases of diversity in beliefs, such elements can hold a community together. Moreover there were not only unifying factors, but also strong forces undermining these bonds. The most important is without doubt the opposition of the Roman rule to the Jewish national religion, for this rule denied the unique relation between God and the Jewish people and thus the religious constitution. How could the Jewish people solve this problem? There were several answers to this challenge. First of all a military solution was present. It was pursued at various times by Jews, culminating in the First Jewish Revolt. Here one may think of the Zealots (Acts 22,3: zeal for God, his Law, his glory), for whom zeal was of a militant kind. Although the Pharisees awaited the collapse of the Roman Empire and the coming of the messianic reign with its lasting peace, they did not consider it their task to 6 At least during the first decades of its existence, Christianity will be spread throughout the Empire through the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. 18 hasten these events. The Zealots, in fact, were an extreme wing split off from the main pharisaic body. They held it their duty to intervene. According to them, no one in Israel was to obey an emperor who arrogated to himself the honor that was due to God. The Zealots used violence: they killed Jewish collaborators and were considered as lawless rebels against the Roman order (see Jn. 18,40; Mt. 27,38.44). For them it was a “holy war” against the Romans, whose last procurator, Gessius Florus, had plundered the Temple Treasury. The First Jewish Revolt was the culmination of this war. A second group of people, being very powerful, were the Sadducees. Their name was probably derived from the high priest Zadok (2 Sam. 8,17). They were a group of leading priests, notables. To this group belonged the influential and wealthy families. This was in fact the group of the defenders of the status quo. From a doctrinal point of view, they were not very successful, but played an important role in politics. They sought to maintain at least a semblance of the Temple state by means of a compromise with the occupying powers, i.e. accepting that the High Priests were appointed and dismissed at will by the Roman governor and that Roman troops occupied Jerusalem. The advantage, however, was the continuity of the Temple worship as long as there was peace. From the New Testament we know that they were very much opposed to Jesus, whom they considered as a cause of trouble in their relation with Rome. Also the Apostles were attacked by them (Acts 4,1-3); 5,17; 23,6- 10).. After the destruction of the Temple, they will disappear from history. A different way was taken by the Essenes at Qumran and the Pharisees. Both began to withdraw from the national political sphere. The Essenes were a Jewish ascetic sect, mentioned neither in the Bible nor the Talmud. On the other hand, people like Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder explicitly mention them in their writings. Source evidence about their activities is limited to the period between the second century BC. and the 19 second century A.D. Moreover, it was a movement that never passed beyond the limits of Palestine. Essenes gave up participation in the Αnormal≅ community life by leaving the Jewish communal life. They set up an alternative community with its own rituals and worship. They preferred a new life style to the atoning rites of the Temple and they hoped that once the Romans were defeated, they could take over the control of the Temple. Information on the Pharisees is present in Josephus, rabbinic sources and the New Testament. They are mentioned in literary sources since the second century B.C. Because of the opposition in the information present in these sources, it is very difficult discover their real religious and political profile. In the New Testament they are often presented as the most vehement opponents of the Lord. On the other hand, after Christ=s resurrection, they were less hostile to the Christian faith than the Sadducees. The Sadducees gradually abandoned their hopes of influencing the life of the nation from the court (=Sanhedrin) and began to establish their own rituals, taken over from the priestly rituals of the Temple. After the fall of Jerusalem, they disappeared from history, but their influence was present in the teaching of the Rabbis and the Mishnah (with which we will deal infra). Their form of communal life will be intensively cultivated in the period after the destruction of Jerusalem, especially. The fourth way was that of the millenarian prophets: John the Baptist, Jesus, and several others. They looked to some divine act of intervention to restore Israel's fortunes and announce a new age. They depicted in imagery, ethical teaching etc. something of the quality, theological and ethical assumptions on which the new age would be based. In one sense, these people were apolitical, i.e. not concerned with the exercise of power, with courses of action which could effect the change which they so vividly announced. In another sense, there were political consequences, in so far as they focused on a 20 people's discontent, sense of loss of identity and value, and therefore fostered new hopes for national renewal. These people had a special openness to the divine. They felt themselves called to proclaim their message regardless of the personal consequences. One may not forget that John the Baptist, Jesus, and Theudas (Acts 5,36) died as martyrs for their cause. John the Baptist was an ascetic prophet announcing the coming wrath and judgment of God. He held a plea in favor of repentance and baptism, in view of the approach of the Kingdom of God. On an ethical level, he became involved in a serious disagreement Jesus was a charismatic person possessed with a sense of present fulfillment and a vision of the qualities which would spring from such a new life in God. However, both were deeply subversive for, being possessed by a God-given vision of a new age, they could loosen the ties of their followers with the old age. Moreover, these men were able to break with the old and thus they had no special relationship with the old community loyalties and self-definitions. John the Baptist thus could dismiss descent from Abraham (Mt. 3,9f). This was not in despite of the past and God's activity in the past, but it was the expression of a fundamental belief about the God of the future. Jesus shared meals with tax-collectors and sinners, a shocking act which was, in fact, indicating that such people might enter the kingdom of heaven before those who were still attempting to hold on to the old age. Jesus thus appeared to be a powerful charismatic prophet, one who called a group of people around himself, invested some of them with special authority, went to Jerusalem and died there as a victim of a strange Jewish-Roman agreement. Is this Jesus the founder of the Christian communities in the Mediterranean world? For A. Loisy, “Jesus preached the kingdom. What came was the Church.” In what sense can the Church claim to be Christ's legitimate heir? The starting point is not how to prove that Jesus founded the 21 Church, but a reflection upon the various ways in which the early Christian communities appropriated traditions about Jesus, forged religious symbols for themselves from his teaching and the stories and beliefs about his life and death, and institutionalized a specific sense of the numinous centered on him. The problem here is Paul and Paul's relationship to Jesus. Is it indeed not remarkable that Paul knows Jesus'sayings, but makes very little use of them, even when it comes to matters of ethics? Paul is not interested in knowing the historical Jesus (2 Cor. 5,16), but rather in experiencing and proclaiming the new life in Christ. Between Paul and Jesus there are similarities. Like Jesus, Paul expected the end of the existing order, but, one must underline that while Jesus talked about the “kingdom of God”, Paul never used this term as a key-word. Central to Paul were Jesus' death and resurrection. According to Paul, they were the guarantee of the general resurrection, which Paul expected within the lifetime of his contemporaries: Paul waited for that which Jesus had promised. Paul's experience of liberation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ became for Paul the criterion, not Jesus and his preaching of the kingdom. For Paul, history was characterized by two ages: Adam (the old age, the age of bondage to sin) and Jesus (the new age, brought about through Christ's death and resurrection, age of liberty, righteousness; cf. Rom. 5,12- 21). Paul sees what has been achieved in Christ and is convinced that he will share in the benefits of this new age. In fact, Christ's death and resurrection already shape the existence of those who live in anticipation of the final fulfillment. Christians are “Christoform”, their existence is conformed to Christ's own experience of bondage and liberation. Christ's entering into the human condition, his death and resurrection are already “ours”. Christ's entering this world is described as taking up the form of a slave (Phil. 2,6ff.). The one who knew no sin, has been made sin (2 Cor. 5,21). Christ really 22 shares our enslavement to beggarly spirits (Gal. 4,3). Christ's death is the gateway to a new, risen life of glory, a liberation through participation in baptism (cf. Rom. 6,1-11). This conformity with Christ embraces not only fundamental aspects of Christian initiation and hope, but it reveals also Paul's particular existence as an apostle (cf. 2 Cor. 5,20; 1 Cor. 15,1-8; 2 Cor. 6,1). One may say that Paul shares something of the same vision of God's justice and mercy as Jesus. The main difference is without doubt that for Paul the vision of God is linked to a call to participate in the mission of the Church to the Gentiles while for Jesus, this vision is linked to a call to proclaim the good news of the kingdom to the poor and the sinners of Israel. But both, Jesus and Paul, are basing themselves on a prophetic experience of call and of being possessed and overpowered by the holy. Both are related to a central perception of God who is radically open to his enemies, to that which is opposed to him. Examples can be Jesus calling sinners, eating with tax-collectors, commanding to the people to love their enemies, rejecting the purity laws. Paul also reveals the same attitude: he claims that God justifies the unjust, preaches reconciliation to the Gentiles, rejects the requirement of circumcision. However, what distinguishes Paul and Jesus is that Paul's vision is now mediated through his knowledge, in the Spirit, of Christ. It must be said here that Paul, before his conversion, was a Pharisee. This leads to a strange dialectic in Paul. He distances himself sharply from any attempt to centre Christianity on the detailed interpretation of Torah (cf. 2 Cor. 3,6). He wants to justify the new community which he is painfully bringing into existence in terms of the “Scriptures”. In his letters, one will find many scriptural allusions, techniques of the Pharisees. He often invokes the authority of Scripture for his own preaching of the Lord, who is the Spirit and the source of liberty (2 Cor. 3,17), but he also claims that the Jews have a veil over their 23 hearts when interpreting Scripture. In Paul's communities, the prophetic voice had precedence over the written words of the Torah. A sharp contrast existed with the emerging communities of first-century Judaism. When Paul came to regulating the life of the community, he strikingly seldom referred to Jesus'ethical teaching, but he appealed to arguments from the popular ethical philosophies of his days. One may in fact think here of is use of the Stoic philosophy. Paul is, of course, well aware of his own task: “I am an apostle. I am free. I have seen the Lord” (1 Cor. 9,1). Thus on his own account at least there is something at the centre of his religious experience which is deeply his own. Problem however is that one cannot easily demonstrate or replicate such deeply personal experiences. Paul's greatest achievement is to have forged the images of the cross and resurrection into powerful symbols which could mediate to his community that sense of the numinous, which for him was so closely tied to his own call. Jesus' cross and resurrection is not Paul's onw invention. It is forming part of the community's basic creed (1 Cor. 15,3ff). It was celebrated in the Church's own Eucharist (1 Cor. 11,26). But Paul gives cross and resurrection a function by linking it to his own experience of suffering and rejection by his former community and of conflict within his own churches. The symbols of cross and resurrection come to stand for a rich and creative view of the world, which will enable the community to grow and develop. Paul's letters are a remarkable witness to this process. In them Paul reflects on his life in the light of the cross and the resurrection. These images are themselves fused together and enriched, and become an enormously powerful and creative religious symbol. They mediate the holy both to Paul and to his community. They give shape and direction to the varied associations which the Church would spawn in the course of history. Cross and resurrection, not the old cultic symbols of Temple and sacrifice, not the study 24 and practice of the Law, are the ways by which the community would discover and worship God. Moreover, Jesus's words and deed were also preserved by the early communities and written down by the evangelists in a form which gives full weight to the passion and resurrection. The memory of Jesus is reworked in the light of Jesus' last days and the subsequent trials and suffering of the earliest Christians during the persecution. This persecution will give a positive significance to Jesus's own death and resurrection, more than e.g. his teaching and healing. The community's sense of alienation and victimization is overcome as they find it reflected and taken up into the story of Christ's own sufferings and strange triumph. It is also important to see that in the Gospels one can find a similar process of measuring oneself against developments in Judaism, as is in the case of Paul. So Matthew will present Jesus as the fulfiller of the Law, who has the freedom to transcend it. In Mark, one clearly will see a description of Jesus's conflict with the scribes and the Pharisees. The fourth Gospel also reflects the same debate with the synagogue (cf. Jh. 8). This Gospel is also involved in the process of reflecting on the meaning of Jesus'life and death in terms which have at least as much resonance in the wider Hellenistic world as in that of Palestinian Judaism. One may think here of the universal imagery of water, wine, bread, and shepherd. This imagery is used in a series of remarkable meditations which present Jesus as the heavenly figure, coming down to bring life, salvation, and freedom from bondage and death. The experience of liberation, fullness of life etc. are projected back into the person of Jesus. Beliefs in some imminent disaster or crisis are now internalized to refer to the crisis in the individual's life as he or she comes into contact with the words and spirit of the Church. These symbols become metaphors and form and give sense to the existence of Christians. These 25 symbols have the power to generate a great diversity of new self- understandings and communities. They give sense and direction to those who part company with the existing order, who break their ties with existing patterns of community and in their isolation find new hopes and new values for a new age. This is the central force of the emerging Christianity, and will give it its fecundity and its unity. &3. The Jewish Dimension Christian life always had a Jewish dimension: the founder of Christianity was a Jew, for the Christians' thought and life the central sources were the Jewish Scriptures, Christianity could not be explained without reference to the Jews, who themselves rejected Christianity. 1. The Jewish community The Biblical view of Jewish exile as a punishment to be ended by a glorious return (Deut. 30,3-4) was modified by Jews in the Graeco-Roman world. They also interpreted their dispersion (diaspora) as a world-wide Jewish colonization, which was for them comparable with the colonial expansion of Greece and Rome. They indeed had a sense of universality and unity as strong as that manifested by the Greeks. They remained in close touch with their home country, paying the Temple taxes and keeping their religion and the restrictions of the Law, though Hellenic culture penetrated into their thougth, as is evident from Philo and Josephus. The Diaspora spanned the eastern frontier of the Roman empire. One may think of Assyria, Egypt, and, from the third century onwards, Babylonia. Babylonia, beyond the Roman 26 frontier, was then the great home of Rabbinic study. Also Galilee, after 135 the main centre of Jewish population in Palestine, was of great importance. The Rabbinic movement in these regions moulded all subsequent Jewish history, for in it originated the Hebrew and Aramaic writings which took shape in the fifth century as the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. Work on the latter continued, while it is also evident that both contained material that was much older. In these regions, the figure of the rabbi and his teaching and preaching became important in Jewish life. He was connected with a highly developed form of the legal tradition handed down together with the Hebrew Bible, but in continuity with the teachers heard in the synagogues in earlier times. Galilee was the seat of the Jewish patriarch. His office gained recognition among Jews under Roman rule in the second century AD and this until 429 AD. The patriarch's state was kingly enough to fit the biblical prophecies of Jewish rule, as appears from both rabbinic and patristic sources. He could in practice exercise the death-penalty. He represented the interests of the Jews under Roman rule to the government. He collected moneys and controlled appointments in the communities through people called apostles, who were armed with encyclical letters. The Empire included notable Jewish populations in Rome, Italy, Sicily, Greece, the Islands, and, above all, the eastern provinces: Egypt, Cyrenaica, Syria, Arabia, Cilicia, Asia Minor. In the West, the importance of the Jews in North Africa emerges from Tertullian and Augustine. In Spain, in 306, the canon of Elvira forbade Christians to eat or intermarry with Jews or to have crops blessed by them. In Graeco-Roman environments, the so-called diaspora of the Greeks, the communities were organized along the lines of Graeco-Roman corporations, each forming a kind of city within the city. Within this city in the 27 city, their internal focus was the synagogue and this for the public reading and exposition of the Law, prayers and communal meals, and for the settlement of disputes. The synagogue buildings in the diaspora could accomodate a hospice and a library, elements being a proof of the Jews' importance (one may think of Alexandria, Sardis, Ostia, Dura Europos). The Jews had to pay a poll tax for this liberty of worship. This tax was probably a punishment for the Jewish Revolt of 66-70. But even if one has to admit that the Jews after the Revolt of 132/5 were excluded from Aelia Capitolina, a colony founded on the site of Jerusalem by Hadrian, one still must recognize that the Jews still enjoyed many advantages: their way of life was recognized as legitimate and this until the end of the fifth and sixth centuries. Of course, civil anti-Jewish measures were present and the building of new synagogues was prohibited, but the protection of the existed synagogues was repeatedly confirmed by kings and emperors. This toleration contrasts with the repression of Christian heresies at that time and is an indication of the fact that the emperor not only respected the established law, but also took into account the political importance of the Jewish communities. Jews took effectively part in the economic life. On papyri from the second century AD on, one can read that in Egypt Jews had jobs as farmers, shipowners, bankers, and that a certain Tryphaena was a woman of property. Of course, certainly after the revolts, one knows of the existence of Jewish slaves, but also then it is still true that, generally speaking, a considerable Jewish wealth is to be recognized. Proof for this is that already in the beginning of the third century Jews were allowed to become city councillors and magistrates, that is, to shoulder widely-avoided public financial burdens. 2. Jewish-Gentile relations 28  Jews were a considerable group in the Graeco-Roman society. They sometimes intermarried with Gentiles. Moreover, often people of mixed descent like Timotheus (Acts 16,1-3) or non-Jews adopted in various degrees the Jewish customs (cf. the Proselytes or the Godfearers). Culturally, the Greek language was a bond of union between Jews and Gentiles, as it was among the Jews of the Roman Empire themselves. Of course, spoken Hebrew survived in the Holy Land, but, generally speaking, Hebrew was not much used by the Jews. Indeed, Greek was the language of three-quarters of the many Jewish inscriptions of Rome, while Latin that of nearly all the rest. Aramaic, already in this context important, was the language of Galilee, Syria, and Mesopotamia, and thus the common language to both Jews and Gentiles. On the other hand, good relations between Jews and non-Jews were precarious, because of the distinctive Jewish customs, the ambition of Judaizing the Gentiles, the Jewish Law as a source of enmity with the Gentiles, and the contempt for Gentile rites and customs, which in fact irritated people. The Jewish author, Josephus, mentions the Jewish-Gentile strife in the cities, strife that is notably present in the Diaspora Revolt of 115-118. The increase of the Christian population thereafter brought shifts in the pattern of disturbances involving Jews. The Jews are said to co-operate with pagans or with one or other of the Christian parties, according to circumstances: e.g. Jews and pagans supported bishop Gregory in 339 when this bishop supplanted Athanasius; laws of 408/9 suggest that Jews supported the outlawed Donatists in attacks on Catholic Churches in North Africa. Given such elements, it will be clear that Christianity caused problems for it appealed to Gentiles, who inclined to sympathize with Judaism. 29 3. Jewish religion It is difficult to describe the Judaism which impinged on Christians in the Roman Empire. One may not forget that the Jewish literature is unevenly distributed geographically. The preserved literature presents Judaism under strikingly different aspects. Materials such as Jewish inscriptions, papyri fragments, archaeological finds, law texts and texts of non-Jewish authors (one may think of the patristic material) sharpen the questions on the nature of the Judaism of the period already raised by the disparate Jewish literary sources. Talmud7 and Midrash8, in Hebrew and Aramaic, represent the Rabbinic movement in Palestine and Babylonia. They are concentrating on the Misnah9 and the Bible respectively. The religious emphasis in both Talmud and Midrash falls on the observance of the Law and on the teaching of Judaism by means of the telling of anecdotes, legends and non-legal exegesis. It is a practical explanation of the Rabbinic tradition, but with very little that a Greek would readily recognize as history or philosophy. Great Jewish authors such as Philo of Alexandria or Flavius Josephus wrote in Greek. They represent the Roman Diaspora at the time of Christian origins. They emphasize Jewish observance but in the idiom of late Greek moral philosophy, especially Stoicism. These authors are acquainted with a legal tradition, but it has a less developed and independent form than it has in Rabbinic texts. Philo's exegesis refers to philosophy, Josephus' reading of the Greek Bible to history. Philo's allegorical interpretation of the Pentateuch unites Scripture with the theology and ethics of the Greek philosophers. 7. Talmud is a collection of Jewish tradition, through the Ages, explaining and interpretating the Law. 8. Midrash is the study of the commentary of the text of H. Scripture by the Rabbis. These commentaries deal with all the parts of the Hebrew Bible. 9. Misnah is the name of the oldest collection of extra-Biblical Jewish Laws. It is the basis of the Talmud and received its definite form in about 200 AD. 30 Illumination is described in Greek fashion, i.e. in terms of initiation into the secrets of the mystery religions. Moses, the Patriarch, becomes an examplar of the truly philosophical way of life. The contrast between these two great bodies of Jewish literary evidence, Rabbinic on the one hand and Greek on the other, immediately suggests an inner-Jewish form of the famous contrast between Judaism and Hellenism. In the first case, Jewish religion is centred on native Jewish traditions, tenacious in attachment to Hebrew, situated in Palestine. In the second case, Jewish religion is assimilated to Greek culture and thought. This religion is found in the Diaspora. On the other hand one must admit that there is more unity than one would expect: types of religion transcend the linguistic-geographical distinction; the Law is in both present as a key-stone. 4. Jewish-Christian links Christians continued to have much more in common with the Jews than with the pagans. It is evident that the Septuagint is the most important Jewish-Christian common factor. The Septuagint is the Bible of the Greek- speaking Jews (the majority!). It was read in the synagogues. It had been the holy book of the first Christians before the writings eventually known as the New Testament were added to it. The Septuagint incorporated developments in the ideas of Judaism. It brought the Greek world into the Bible. The distinctive Christian texts were linked to the Septuagint, which constituted the basis of Christian teaching and thought. A major Jewish influence on Christianity was that of the Septuagint as interpreted by Philo, to whom Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Ambrose of Milan were all indebted. Christians were culturally dependent on the first Jewish community (cf. Origen; Jerome). Christians gladly accepted Jewish views of the translators as 31 inspired but also had to come to terms with Jewish revision and replacements of the Septuagint (I think of the importance of a Hebrew original which for the most part people could not read). Dependence is also present in Christian art: it is attested from about the years 200 onwards and is based to a large extent on the Old Testament scenes. Finally Judaism shared a family likeness with Christianity. Greek Scripture, Greek prayers, the elaboration and decoration of buildings etc. embodied the tradition to which also belonged Christian Scripture, prayer, art, institutions, and which the Christians persistently claimed as their own. 5. Jewish-Christian controversy The Christian claim to the biblical inheritance forms the keynote of the many treatises “Adversus Judaeos”. Christians emphasized that the crucified Christ is the Messiah announced in Scripture. They maintained that the Law was symbolic and had been abrogated. They claimed that Christians, because of the Jewish refusal, now were the elect people of God. This “Adversus Judaeos”-literature reflects the need to confirm Christian waverers and to put a credible case to pagans in the face of an established Jewish community with substantial Gentile adherence. This apologetic attitude can be explained by the presence of the proselytes. It was not unknown for Christians to adopt Judaism and many other Christians attended synagogues as well as Church services, a custom which still existed in the fifth century (cf. Chrysostom's sermons). This is a proof that the situation did not immediately change with Constantine, but some indications of increased Christian influence appear: in the fifth century the conversion of the Jews is a topic in the West (cf. Leo I); the changed political situation reflected on a large scale on the Jewish side in the convergence of the themes 32 of Rabbinic documents representing fourth century-Palestine, including the Jerusalem Talmud, with the themes of major Christian writers of the same period. The Christians believed that the Jews as a body were hostile. Jews were indeed very critical to Christ: he was rightly condemned as a deceiver (Deut. 13,1-15). Both the New Testament and Josephus suggest that Jewish authorities repressed Christianity from an early date, but the Jewish opinion was sometimes divided (as over the execution of James, the brother of the Lord, in AD 62, according to Josephus, Antiquities XX, 200-203). The Jewish revolt of 132-135 reveals that Jews persecuted Christians and that they took anti-Christian measures. The bitterness of some anti-Jewish polemic is consistent with this situation, but the same tone can persist under the Christian empire. Christians however, unlike the pagan anti-semitic authors, never criticized the Old Testament, for this book was also the Christians own inheritance. But the more general pagan invectives were used, and of course also the accusations around the murder of Jesus: “Your hands are full of blood” (Isa. I,5-6). “Wash you, make you clean” is an open reference to the Jews, the murderers and thus unclean people. However, these elements cannot obscure the profound significance for the Church in its life and thinking as well as in its outward circumstances of the Jewish dimension. &4. The Pagan Religious Background a. Hellenistic cultural conditions Thanks to Alexander the Great (356-323) people from the Aegean Sea 33 to the Indus River, from the Danube River to the Saharah Desert, civilizations such as the Persian, Semitic, and Egyptian were conquered by Alexander and received the political impress of his ecumenical ideal for Hellenistic culture. Alexander's ideal was a Greek cultural homogeneity. Conflicts arose: the Hellenic Dionysius, the Egyptian Isis, the Syrian Atargatis, the Phrygian Cybele and the Hebrew Yahweh came in conflict with Alexander's ecumenical ideal. But these traditions also resulted in a profound enrichment of the cultural possibilities during the Graeco-Roman period. Moreover one has also to recognize that Alexander's ideal (after his death) was destroyed: three dynasties came into existence (Ptolemies in Egypt; Seleucids in Syria; Antigonids in Macedonia), and this until the reality of an international empire was succesfully revived by Caesar Augustus. With the victory of Augustus over Anthony and Cleopatra (Actium 31 BC) the last of Alexander's former kingdom was incorporated into the Roman Empire. Cultural periodization, however, rarely conforms to political change. Romans loved the Greek culture and Augustus modelled his reign and person upon that of Alexander. Unlike Greek and Jewish historiographies, Roman historiographers produced comprehensive histories of all peoples as they related to the new internationalism centred in Rome, the founding of which was traced by such writers of the Augustan era as Livy and Virgil to the Aeneas of Homeric epic. So a distinctively Hellenistic period of cultural and religous history, a history thus that included contributions from all those cultures, incorporated into the Alexandrian as well as Augustan Empires, must be dated as extending from the end of the fourth century BC, until the formalization of a Catholic Christian culture by the beginning of the fifth century AD. Apart from the political transformation, attention must be paid to the 34 cosmological revolution. Traditionally people held a three-stoned cosmic image: overarching heaven, corresponding underworld, both defined by a geocentric locale. The Ptolemaic cosmology (Ptolemy Claudius, second century AD) differentiated an universal system of seven planetary spheres that surrounded the globe. A terrestrial realm was distinguished from the planetary realm of celestial order, the whole contained within a finite sphere of fixed stars. Western culture imagined its physical universe in terms of this cosmology until the “Copernican” revolution in the sixteenth century. Since all mythic expression is seen in terms of cosmic imagery, the Hellenistic cosmological framework described by Ptolemy is at least as significant for an understanding of Hellenistic religious expression as the political and cultural transformation initiated by Alexander's conquest. Here we have a new cosmic topography which possesses a protracted conquest of space, just like one found in the political contemporary. This reveals the parochial character of traditional, locally defined, images of divine power. The native deities either became repositioned in terms of this new cosmopolitanism or they declined into poetic memory. On the level of ethical concerns, the new internationalized and universalized order, typical of Hellenistic culture, led Hellenistic Stoic and Epicurean philosophers to reflections on the nature of “self”: What must we do? What is our function in the universe? One may think here of Socrates' Gnothi seauton, which is always to be linked to relationship. This attitude leads to practical teachings about the conduct of everyday life and the relationship to the material, political, and divine world, about health, diet, and education. The Hellenistic religions during the Graeco- Roman period gave ritualized expression to such ethical strategies, which in turn became the basis for Christian monastic practices in the fourth and the fifth centuries. 35  In sum, three conditions for knowledge were characteristic of Hellenistic culture: the political reality of an internationalism imposed by Alexander's conquests, and a consequent cultural and religious pluralism; the Hellenistic internationalism was reinforced by the cosmological revolution. More than the system of concessions and conflicts that resulted from an imposed imperialism, the universalism of nature represented by cosmic image structured a framework for the shared possibilities of Hellenistic life and culture. This political internationalism with its problems of cultural interaction and identity together with the cosmological universalism structured the local and ecumenical possibilities of collective identity, based upon self-knowledge. b. The Hellenistic religious system Piety (eusebeia) means right relationship. The word was used in antiquity to designate relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, masters and slaves, officers and soldiers, rulers and subjects, and, by extension, gods and mortals. The corpus of piety represented a social system. The practices of this piety “properly” constituted the selves of their practitioners in terms of the accepted social (= local), political (= international) and cosmic (= universal) order of things assumed in Hellenistic culture generally. One example may clarify this: the family rites ensured harmony within the family unit, while agricultural rites maintained a productive relationship with the land itself. The problem in the changing conditions of the Graeco-Roman period was the increasing isolation of the locally defined practices to a growing international and universal culture. Some pietistic practices however were able to adopt to these new conditions. The Roman emperor cult in fact must be understood in the pietistic sense of maintaining a “proper” socio-politically prescribed relationship 36 between an imperial ruler and his multinational subjects. The popular astrology for its part was able to incorporate Greek mathematical precision and cosmological advance into a “scientific” system. The perception of disorder, attributed to a capricous play of fate in the terrestrial realm might be corrected by exact observation of the obvious orderly movements of the celestial spheres and the application of this order to mundane events and life, a cultural system anologous to that of the mystery cults. The mysteries offered, through cult initiation, a harmonious relationship with these celestial deities, now explicitly identified with “good fortune”. These deities might intervene in the lives of their devotees to provide a remedy for their “bad fortune”. The following typology for the variety of Hellenistic mystery cults may be suggested. A distinction may be made between cults that retained a localized focus (e.g. Eleusis) and those cults that, although still indentified with their native origins, spread throughout the Graeco-Roman world (e.g. the mysteries of Isis). One may also distinguish mysteries of Greek origin from those of non-Greek origin. Finally, a distinction is present between traditional native cults that were internationalized under the conditions of Hellenistic culture and the newly created cults out of these cultural conditions. A sense began to grow from the third century BC that the entire cosmos was deficient and ruled by an oppressive fate. This oppressive fate was exemplified politically by the very success of the Augustan pax Romana and cosmically by the virtually universal acceptance of an ordering but deterministic astrological system or by the removed sovereignity of distant celestial deities. This is thus an anticosmism that rejects the inner-worldly techniques for “salvation” and that preaches redemption through escape from cosmic limit itself. This tradition is called the Gnostic tradition. By way of introduction one must underline that today there is an 37 enormous increase in new, and above all, original sources and monuments. As a consequence, the state of research in this field is altered fundamentally in the last few decades. In the traditional approach, Gnostic sects were presented as early Christian heresies. Such a view was in line with the view of the Church Fathers. Today, attention is given more to the universal character of this phenomenon and in stead of the theological approach, a religio-historical one was introduced. Gnosis now is put in a broader context of the history of ideas of the Hellenistic world and late antiquity. As is known, gnosis is ealready present in the New Testament (1 Tim. 6,20). It was used to cover groups who no langer were content with the statements of faith and modes of behaviour. These groups went their own way when dealing with the problem of evil and that of humanity's place and destiny in the cosmos. The thinking of these groups was dominated by dualism, a feature present in Platonism, in Iranian and Zoroastrian religions, in early Judaism (cf. Qumran) and apocalyptic writings. Gnostics taught that the world was a product of a foolish crator, who had created the world without the permission of the supreme God. As a reaction, this God provided humans with an other-worldly, divine substance, called either Spirit, or Soul, or Spark. Now, humans were enabled to see through the work of the inferior creator and to perceive the true goal of humanity as the return to what is often called the Kingdom of Light. The telos (end) of history was the ultimate dissolution of the cosmos. The gnosis of this telos was a supernatural one, revealed through either messengers or through the traditional form of the myth. Gnostics considered themselves to be elected people. The gnosis would help to free these people from the world, by releasing the soul from the body and matter. In order to realize this, Gnostics lived an ascetic life and participated in liberating rituals. As can be seen in the Nag Hammadi codices (discovered in 1945), texts were collected and used by Christian Gnostics and went back to 38 sources of about the second and the third centuries. The significance of the codices is that it presents us with both Christian and non-Christian writings. In other words, it is clear that their is some independence of Gnostic writers from Christians and this corroborates the thesis of a non-Christian origin of Gnosis. Further, there is a strong connection with Jewish apocalyptic and extra-biblical traditions. The intertwining of Gnostic and early Christian ideas in the Christian-Gnostic texts explain the reaction of many Fathers of the Church, who probably saw the danger of an alien thought-world for Christianity. On the other hand, Gnostics often stimulated christological, trinitarian and cosmological discussions. Today, most scholars will accept that there has been an interaction between Gnostic ideas and Christian teaching: to some extent, theological problems arose through the encounter with Gnostic concepts. The theological efforts of authors such as Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, and Augustine were to a large extent determined by their opponents. The state of the world, the problems of creation and salvation, the status of Christ in relation to God and to the man Jesus of Nazareth, the relationship between faith and knowledge, death and resurrection, good and evil, tradition and interpretation - all are subjects which were important to both Gnostics and Christians. The attitude of the Gnostics concerning the Church-State relations, the role of women, the place of the laity urged the offical Church to take a position, and this up to today (cf. the New Age movement). That also Islam possesses a >Gnostic shadow=, is accepted today. As is said, the Gnostic tradition had a redemptive strategy, was characterized by its anticosmism, and said no to the idea of taking care of one's self, whether this was religious or philosophical, as governed by this worldly concerns. For this movement, self-knowledge had a transcendent and spiritual content. 39  The Gnostic rejection of this-worldly concerns extended to Hellenistic notions of a natural order of things and cosmic structure, Hellenistic explanatory systems of fate, traditional deities and philosphical thought. The main reason for this attitude was that all were held to be deterministic and oppressive, for bound to the finite totality of cosmic deficiency. Historically considered, early Christianity was but another Hellenistic religion cast in terms of one or another of these expressions (piety, mysteries, Gnosis) of its contemporary culture. c. Christianity's pagan legacy Early Christian alternatives shared in the rich possibilities of Hellenistic religious culture and this from the Christianized examples of pietistic soteriology to the redemptive claims of the Gnostic traditions. But soon the Gnostic traditions were considered to be “heretical” and unorthodox. Christianity in as far as it presented itself as “official” will ally itself with characteristics associated with piety and mysteries. On the level of piety, the practices tend to persist from one religious system to the next. Several practices (e.g. incubation) became Christianized but retained their largely local character. Christianity shared with one or another of the mystery cults soteriological goals often expressed in the symbolism of death and rebirth and focused upon a savior deity. Christianity practiced also cult rituals as initiation, baptism, purification, fellowship, and sacramental meals. They shared a central terminology of cult expression such as “mystery”, “perfection”, and “spiritual”. In Christianity one will also find similar ethical concerns. The main difference between Christianity and the cults of Demeter, 40 Dionysius, Isis, Mithras etc. is that these cults represent an attempt at cosmic federation, an attempt to negate the ravages of a cosmic fate in the context of, and in support of, ecumenical culture and imperial internationalism, while the emerging Christian “orthodoxy” represented a “catholic” internationalism as the “providential” outcome of historical development and progressive expansion. Christianity's historically structured cultural system was modeled upon the Jewish salvation history (immediate background of Christianity) and the Roman history itself. The late fourth century poet Prudentius indeed borrowed his own argument for the inevitable emergence and greatness of Christian Rome from the Roman paradigm for the development of Rome from Greek origins, as it was popularized by Virgil's Aeneas. In addition to this historicized ideology of universalism, Christians were able to construct, on the basis of “kinship in Christ”, a practical network of relationships and communications that successfully spanned the decentralized distribution of pagan cult centers and the crumbling political structures of the empire. &5. Christian Mission and Expansion The earliest Christian communities developed within the Jewish communion. They were based on the belief that Jesus by his death and resurrection had brought about the beginnings of final salvation. The primitive Christian Church saw itself as the true Israel. Very soon faith found its way in Israel and in the Diaspora. Indeed, when Paul converted, in Damascus Christians could be found to accept him, and this already happened in about 35 AD. Within the sphere of Hellenized Judaism of the Diaspora, Christianity however soon ceased to be an internal Jewish movement. Acts 10 proves that this development was initiated by the members of the Jerusalem community 41 (Peter will convert Cornelius). Acts 8,26ff; 11,19f tell the story of the conversion of some so-called Hellenists. But also Saint Paul did not belong to the Jerusalem community and openly preferred to stress his independance from it. Paul considers his own missionary activity as a mission to the Gentiles. The Hellenized Jewish communities offered favourable conditions to such tendencies. In many of them an informal circle of so-called Godfearing Gentiles had arisen. These Gentiles were fascinated by the “reasonable worship” of the Synagogue with its ethical orientation. But they also hesitated to submit to the ceremonial legislation of the Mosaic Law, including circumcision. Therefore, according to strict Jewish standards, they were still regarded as Gentiles. Probably from these groups the first Christian believers of Gentile origin were recruited. The only condition for full membership was baptism. The first community which included Gentile Christian members was the Church of Antioch in Syria. This development inevitably caused disagreement. Jewish Christians indeed considered an unconditional admission of Gentiles as a disregard of God's Law. As a result, a separate Jewish Christianity emerged and also Jewish resistance to Christian infiltration increased. Because of the mutual separation Christians became to call themselves Christians, followers of Christ. The first Church which did so, was the one of Antioch. The wanted to express the distinction between the Jews, the Gentiles, and the third race: the Christians. The further progress of early mission cannot be traced. The only exception is the Pauline mission, which started in Antioch, came to Cyprus, parts of south-western Asia Minor, then to Greece, via Asia Minor (Galatia, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth must be mentioned). He was also active for some time in Ephesus and western parts of Asia Minor. Other successful missionary efforts were Rome (already Christians in Rome before AD 49) and 42 Egypt. Also Jewish Christianity advanced, obliging its converts to keep the Mosaic Law and developing traditions of its own. Thus various Jewish- Christian churches arose, at least in East Jordanian Palestine and in Syria. The paths followed by early Christian missions were prepared by the spread of Hellenized Jewish communities. The God-fearing Gentiles attached to the synagogues showed themselves especially receptive to the Christian message. This explains the surprisingly rapid advance of early Christianity, but determined also its character. The Greek lingua franca became the Christian language. The advantage of this choice was the fact that many people could be attracted by the new faith. However, this choice also meant a limitation: Christian preaching did not make use of Latin prior to the second century. Christianity also spread as an urban religion among largely cosmopolitan groups of population. It was not at all restricted to the lower classes. From the very beginning, members of the middle and upper classes, people who played an important part in community life and administration, belonged to the new faith. The majority of the members were women. Christianity's spread was first of all realized by the ministry of the apostles, but also spontaneous missions through everyday relationships must be mentioned. During the first two centuries, favourable travel conditions and great mobility, especially among those social groups which were susceptible to the Christian appeal, resulted in a quite effective evangelization. It grew even more important when the charismatic element lost its strength by the late first century. Instead of charismatics now teachers propagates Christian faith as “true philosophy”. One may think of Justin Martyr (+165) and Clement of Alexandria (+215). What was the effect of Christianity on its environment? Christianity was suspected because of its claim to religious exclusivity, its rejection of the 43 traditional religious manifestations, the in-group mentality of the Christian communities and the devotion of the martyrs (for the pagans, a sign of fanaticism). On the other hand, Christians were appreciated for the fact that they responded to an existing demand for religious and ethical direction and spiritual guidance. Christianity also gave a well-defined identity and religious self-consciousness to the communities. Christian charity moreover was, at least according to the Christian opinion, appreciated also by non-Christians. Christianity had never been a homogenous unity, and its early extension meant diversification as well. One may refer here to the disagreement concerning the Mosaic Law and the different cultural backgrounds. By the end of the second century, the outlines of a “catholic” Church appeared. This catholic Church did not form a comprehensive ecclesiastical organization, but was marked by common features: the rule of faith (elementary consensus of doctrinal tradition), the established order of ministry based on the episcopate, and the Scriptural canon of the NT. At this time, in the East, Christian communities were numerous in the interior and the Western parts of Asia Minor. Here they were already present in rural areas. The success in Greece was not overwhelming, but Christians were already present in Crete. After the Jewish Bar-Cochba-Revolt, the Christian community in Palestine was characterized by its Greek Gentile outlook. Greek Gentile Christianity had indeed replaced the former Jewish Christian communities. In eastern Syria, a Syriac-speaking Christianity with features related to the Gnostic thought was present. Egypt had different Christian groups and schools. In the West, Rome was a very important Church. It remained until well into the third century mostly Greek. In Roman North Africa, one will find the first clear evidence of Christian life in the late second century. By this time African Christianity had adopted a Latin character and had even reached 44 smaller rural settlements. The beginnings of Christianity in Spain remain a mystery, but it was present there. In Gaul the Christian penetration followed the old trade route along the river Rhone. At this time, further diffusion seems to have already begun from Lyon. The preaching of the Gospel from Jerusalem “unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts I,8) is the leading subject of Acts and seems to be realized in about 200 AD. Tertullian then stated that the Gospel was proclaimed all over the world: from Egypt to Morocco, from Iran to Spain, and from the Russian Steppe to Britain (Against the Jews, 7). During the third century, the growth of Christianity caused some anti- Christian reactions. Steps were taken in order to suppress Christianity. One may think of the persecutions by Decius (249-251) and Valerian (253-260). Both emperors however did not succeed in preventing further Christian advance. By an increasing number of community houses, cemeteries, epitaphs etc. Christianity manifested itself in public. In the third century Christianity continued to be particularly widespread in Asia Minor, not only in urban, but also in rural districts. Systematic missionary activity has been ascribed to the bishop of Neo-Caesarea in Pontus (North Asia Minor), Gregory the Wonderworker (+270). A steady advance of Christianity was realized in Syria, in the western as well as in the eastern part of that country. The representative centers here were Antioch and Edessa. In Lebanon and Palestine, the Christian communities remained confined to the Hellenized cities, but they formed a close network of bishoprics. Egypt emerged as one of the most important regions of the Ancient Church. There was indeed a steady Christian penetration accompanied by a centralized hierarchical organization of the Egyptian Church, with the bishop of Alexandria as its head. The beginnings of a Coptic Bible translation indicate that Christianity was not restricted to the Hellenized classes of Egyptian population. 45  In the West, Christianity substantially increased in Roman North Africa, particularly in the provinces of Africa proconsularis and Numidia, with Carthage as its centre. At the end of the third century, Christianity was here a considerable minority. Latin Christianity was a mean of Romanization for the Punic -or Berber- speaking classes. In Italy, the Roman Church had a clergy of more than one hundred and fifty persons at the middle of the third century. In the central and southern regions, a network of Episcopal sees had emerged, but there was only slow progress in the North, with Milan and Aquileia as centers. In Spain, churches were present in nearly all parts of the country. In the south-east of Provence (Gaul), a group of bishoprics had been established, while from Lyon via Treves Christianity found its way to Cologne on the Rhine. The martyrdom of St. Alban at Verulamium in England might already have taken place during the persecution of Decius (249-251). In England, in the beginning of the fourth century, at least three Episcopal sees were present: York, London, and Lincoln. It must be evident that on the eve of the great persecution (cf. Diocletian 284-305) in 303, Christians formed a firmly established minority within the Roman Empire, though there were considerable differences between its various regions. The persecutions did not effectively alter this situation. When Christian religion was recognized as legal by Diocletians's successor Galerius and his co-rulers in 311, steady expansion of Christianity until the end of late Antiquity is evident. But because of the doctrinal controversies which permanently disturbed the Church and the Empire, one will see that, from the fourth century on, separate churches emerged. They were stamped by the officially recognized Catholics as Arian, Nestorian, or Monophysite respectively. But all churches contributed considerably to the expansion of Christianity. Only in the fourth century Christianity really penetrated in the rural 46 areas as such. The fifth and sixth centuries were characterized by the growth and expansion of Christianity but as a divided Church. In the seventh century, all Christian progress in Arabia was brought to a sudden end by the rise of Islam. In the West, theologians tended to look on the barbarians and their openess to Christian preaching with scepticism. However, in the far North- West (=Britain), Christianity did advance beyond the Roman frontiers, and this especially during the sub-Roman period. The Roman domination over Britain actually came to an end at the beginning of the fifth century, but at that time, Christianity had already gained ground even north of Hadrian's Wall. During the first decades of the fifth century at the latest, Romano-British Christianity advanced to Ireland. So we know that, in 431, Pope Celestine I sent a certain Palladius as bishop to the AChristians among the Irish. During the second third of the century, the Briton Saint Patrick worked as a missionary and bishop in Ireland. Afterwards, the Irish Christianity in its turn assumed missionary responsibilities: in 563, an Irish monk, Columba, will found a monastery on the Isle of Iona (Hebrides). After the fall of the Roman frontier security on the Rhine and the Danube during the fifth century the Germanic invaders did not suppress Christian religion, although one must recognize that there was a considerable diminution of the romanized population as a result of a long period of war and misery. The Church's position certainly was weakend, but Christianity was powerfull enough to survive. In the sixth century, two mayor turning-points must be mentioned. Important for Christianity was the conversion of the Frankish king Clovis (506). Clovis became a Christian in order to have a new religious legitimation of his royal position, but his decision was of great help for the spread of the Christian faith. The official adoption of Christianity by the Jutish kingdom of Kent and its king Ethelbert (598) and the coming of Augustine of Canterbury 47 to England resulted in a new impulse for Christianity on the island. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Christianity was spread all over Western Europe. 48  II. THE GROWTH OF A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY &I. The Bible The word Bible is derived, through the French and Latin, from the Greek biblia, books, used in the Septuagint in such expressions as “the Books of the Law” (1 Macc. 1,56) and “the holy Books” (1 Macc. 12,9). The usual Greek word for the Jewish sacred writings, however, was not biblia but graphai. But whereas graphai was translated into the Latin scripturae, biblia was transliterated, and Biblia thus became a new and distinctive term for the Holy Scriptures, denoting, as its plural form shows, a collection of books. As the Biblical books were increasingly considered a unity, the word (originally neuter plural) came to be understood as a female singular, whence the French la Bible. a. What is Scripture? The first Christian generations did not have our Bible, but just a collection of writings, recognized by the Jews as sacred and authoritative. Gradually also a collection of books by members of the Christian community came into existence. At that time (until the end of the second century) Christians had two collections at their disposal. Only from the early third century on, lists of books which were recognized as really belonging to these collections and of books about which there was a disagreement or of books upon which people agreed that they did not belong to the authorized list existed. At that time, the Torah (the five books of the Law) was accepted by all. The Prophets, the Historical Books and the Kethubim were read but possessed less 49  authority. Important to know is that in Alexandria the comprehensive translation of Jewish sacred texts into Greek was establishing a slightly larger range of books as normative, though the Torah continued to occupy a special position (cf. Septuagint). This resulted in a rather ambiguous situation: the Jews of Palestine had established, at the end of the first century, a normative collection, including most of the current non-Torah material that was regarded as fit for public reading and study, but they still excluded books or portions of books, by now surviving only in Greek, which formed part of the Alexandrian collection.10 The great majority of early Christians (and Jews outside Palestine) took the Alexandrian collection as authoritative, for they were practically all part of a Greek speaking culture. A great scholar like Origen knew about the Palestinian list -the shorter collection of works in Hebrew- but used the Alexandrian collection in his own exposition and argument. Only Jerome tended to prefer the Hebrew texts to the Greek, but this happened only in the fourth century. Maybe at that time the authority of the Septuagint is diminishing. However, by 100 AD most Christian communities would have shared with their Jewish neighbors a canon of sacred books in Greek, consisting of the books of the O.T. as was found in the Septuagint. Early Christianity gives an authoritative place to sacred writing, and its reflection and speculations, as we see this at work in the letters of Paul and other works, which is grounded in and, to some extent, controlled by this sacred text. Two questions arise: 1. How did the notion of holy writing come to be applied to books 10 This is the literature known by the Protestants as the Apocyphra: one may think here of Wisdom of Jesus-ben-Sirach. 50 written by Christians? 2. How did Christians set about defining their canon as the Jews had defined theirs? 2 Petr. 3,16 strongly suggests that Paul's letters, or at least some of them, were included in a Christian collection of sacred writings by the time this epistle was written. Indeed, the author speaks of the problems people have in interpreting Paul's work and of the fact that some people misuse these letters “just as they do with the rest of the graphai”. The above mentioned letter is written between 100 and 125. It is probably the earliest evidence we have for a collection of Christian Scripture. The idea of graphè is also present in the second letter of Clement (130-150). One therefore has the impression that one or more gospels and at least some of Paul's letters formed the nucleus of a Christian canon by the middle of the second century. This was the result of a process that started already in the first century. A good example here is Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius is bishop of the Christians of Antioch at the very beginning of the second century. His letters are sent to the Churches of Asia Minor and Rome. Ignatius was being taken to Rome for trial and martyrdom. In his letters, Ignatius tells us something about Christian communities spread over quite a wide area. Ignatius never quotes directly from the Gospels and the Pauline epistles, if this should mean a literal reproduction of a whole sentence or passages but he repeatedly seems to be familiar with a largish number of books from our New Testament and he expects his readers to share this familiarity. Ignatius certainly knows Matthew, I Corinthians and Ephesians, Romans, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and 1 Thessalonians, probably John, perhaps Luke. Ignatius never calls a Christian text holy or inspired. He never distinguishes between Jewish and Christian graphè but between the 51  writings of (Jewish) Scripture and the facts of the birth, cross, and resurrection of Jesus. In his own witness to that history, he instinctively treats his Christian texts as a proper source for the moulding of his own idiom and imagination and as a common frame of reference within which people have to exhort and dispute with the other believers. What is present here, can also be found in several other second-century texts: allusions and reminiscences to texts rather than quotations but: there is a “christian body”. The writings of Justin Martyr (Η165) tell us that the Gospels were read during the eucharistic worship of the Church along with the Jewish Scriptures. Here a certain process has come to an end. The earliest worship is likely to have occurred in two different contexts. In the synagogue Christians heard the Jewish graphè read, explained and discussed by the community's teachers. Christians also came together for the ritual meal. Letters from senior figures (e.g. Paul) addressing themselves to a whole group of believers, were written to be read at such meetings. The fact that they were copied and preserved and passed from one community to another (Col. 4,16) shows that they were not read only once. Probably also the sayings of Jesus were used in public teaching and the narratives like that of the Last Supper and of crucifixion played some part in worship. Here one can see a parallel with the Jewish practice of telling the story which lies at the origins of the ritual now being performed. With the separation from the synagogues Christians had to construct their own “Synagogue service”. Here they were still reading the Jewish Scripture and singing Jewish psalms. But now they added to it the reading of the Christian literature, especially the apostles' letters and the stories of Jesus. Teaching in the worship meeting would inevitably use these resources in the same sort of way, as text that could be appealed to 52 because everyone knew them. From here to the idea of Christian Scripture is a very short step. The pressure to decide on canonical limits to Christian graphè was acute by the end of the second century for the growth of groups within and on the margin of the Churches, groups that took an exceptionally radical line on the Church's relation to Jewish Scripture, prompted the question of acceptable limits to diversity. One may think here indeed of the gnostic movement. It used the New Testament in order to support various sorts of gnostic theology and produced fresh writings of their own. It is in this context that Marcion (c. 160), an Asian Christian, excommunicated by his father, a bishop, on grounds of immorality, who had settled in Rome, must be mentioned. Marcion argued for the complete irreconcilability of Jewish and Christian Scripture. He was the first to propose a specifically and exclusively Christian canon. He was convinced that the God of Jewish Scripture, the creator of the world is a tyrannical and immoral God. Thus anything in Christian writing that suggested a positive understanding of this God and the material world he had created, had to be rejected. Marcion accepted only Luke's Gospel and a “corrected” version of ten letters of Paul while excluding the pastoral letters. His followers produced a set of “prologues” to some of the epistles, explaining the corruption and interpolation of the supposed “originals” by proto-Jewish hands, and underlining Paul's hostility to the Jewish God. Marcion's work forced the Churches to define the nature of their graphè more closely and to provide a rationale for Jewish and Christian Scripture alongside each other. Since for Christians, according to their Scripture, Jesus was the fulfillment of the hope of the Jewish people and Jesus had been foretold and foreshadowed in Jewish Scripture, there was already a strong assumption of continuity. The Dialogue with Trypho (AD 160) of Justin 53  shows how some Christians argued over the right interpretation of Jewish Scripture with the Jews, the “possessors” of this text. Melito of Sardes (c. 170-180) spoke of the books of the Old Testament, thus implying that there were also books of the New Testament that were recognized as inspired Scripture. What Melito is mentioning here, is probably the result of a reaction to Marcion. Somewhere between 160 and 180, the Church seemed to establish and fix its New Testament- canon. Indeed, in 1740, L. A. Muratori discovered a text which is the oldest known canon of New Testament. It contains about 85 lines. The text is written in such a poor Latin, that it seems to suggest that the original was in Greek. Towards 200 AD Irenaeus is defending the acceptance of four Gospels and Tatian is producing a harmony of the gospel texts, the Diatessaron. In short, by the year 200 AD, our Bible has taken shape because of the internal development of Christian practice and the specific challenge of marginal, radical groups. By the early to mid-fourth century, writers like Athanasius and Eusebius can refer confidently to a scriptural canon accepted in the same form in all the major churches. b. How do people teach the Scripture? Public t