June 25, 2002 The Early Church's First 300 Years: Part 1 of 2
by Fr. Stephen Dominic Hayes, O.P.
The discussion began with whether or not the Church in the Acts of the Apostles was the same Church we see today.� What constituted the Church?� If Jesus founded the Church then there should be some connection with then and now.� What kind of institution is the church? Human or Divine?
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To understand about it is to know what the shape of the Church is.
The Beginning
The beginning of the Church is debated as when the work of the Master is finished; that could be considered His death on the Cross, His Ascension, or Pentecost.� Most believe that to be Pentecost when the Spirit comes upon the disciples, the seed is planted and we see the first growth, which is 3,000 souls baptized that day.
Christ is the head of the Church but its members complete His mission.� Christ�s Church at Pentecost contained the whole Church that we see today. That is, the essentials of what makes up our Church.
What are the Essentials? What was there at Pentecost?
The Eucharist: Acts 2:42, �And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.�� Breaking Bread was the �technical term� for the Eucharist. St. Paul said in 1Cor 10:16: �. . . The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?�
Baptism: The start of Community life.
Communal Life: Not straight communism that if someone has a need, the need is met by the group or radical communism where there is no private property, but a sharing of resources and gifts.
It is brought up the story of the couple Sapphira and Ananias in Acts chapter 5 who sold their items but gave only part to the community. This was actually that they sold what they had for a greater amount than they said and lied about giving to the community all that they had.� If they had sold everything, kept some and were forthright about what they were giving to the community, no punishment would have befallen them.
Liturgy: They had the essentials or the �kernel� of the current mass then.
Pope/Papacy: Not literally but Peter had a special role in the Church.
Reading Scripture Together: Breaking of the bread does not include the Gospel, of course.� Readings were from the loose scrolls, which made up scripture. There was no official canon of the Jewish scriptures for many more years.
Share Meals: A social life to share a meal with someone you are friends with.� There is a family side to this Church.
Unity of Belief: What�s absent? Division & Quarrels, and when they do happen it is a scandal.� They listen to the apostles and are in union with them.� They are from all nations but they are all Jews to begin with.
Presence of Miracles: Tongues of fire, Roaring wind, great noise; all the signs at Pentecost was a reprise of what happened at Sinai when the Lord came down on Moses.� And coincidentally this happens on the feast of booths/the giving of the Law.� All the signs of Pentecost happened also at Sinai in a way to mark this people as holy for the Lord.
From the beginning the Church is unity: One.� Having marks of God: Holy. Universal: Catholic, and the Church is apostolic due tot he mark of Unity with the apostles� teaching & apostolic community.
Jesus sends the spirit to form the Church.� The death of the last apostle marks the end of apostolic teaching.
Some things are not in place but during the apostolic age the Spirit reveals them.� One is the formation of deacons.� The Church is holy, set apart which is the idea of ordination.� Deacons are there to feed the physical nourishment of the people.� Deacons also provide spiritual feeding as propagators of the Word.
Problems in the Early Church.
Jesus did not leave a manual.� Problems involved the practicality of maintaining the Church.
Sin in the Church: Sapphira and Annanias.� Their death is emphasized here to show that Truth and Justice are taken seriously.
Problems with Converts: When dealing with Gentiles.� If you�re going to be a Christian, do you first have to be a Jew?� It makes sense but it can be a burden to those older men.� There are two sides to the issue.� Paul opposed it by saying it was a betrayal of the Gospels.
The apostolic ministry was brought together to deal with this and this became known as the council of Jerusalem.� The decision was to send two Hebrews w/ Paul and Barnabus to the Gentiles to let them know the requirement would not be put on them.
They said, �It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and us� (Acts 15:28). This is bold to say this but this puts forth the fundamental notion of a council which I that it is one with the Holy Spirit. So a decision of a council is recognized as from God.
Persecution and the Spread of the Faith
Herod in Jerusalem.� As they fled they gained more communities and by the 60�s the Church was spread to the farthest ends of the Roman Empire as far as Spain & to the east in Syria & Iraq, even India a little later.
At this time Paul is serving mostly Gentiles.� How did he do it?� He would first go to the Jewish people. 10% of the Roman Empire was Jewish as the time because it was a very popular religion.� It had a moral code, which Pagan religion did not.
Second, he would gradually move into the pagan areas.
Then end of scriptural Judaism.
By c70 AD there is a solid break with Judaism.� Around this time was the first Jewish war. 40 years after Christ was put to death the Jews rebelled against Rome.� Rome didn�t play around this time and crushed them.� This means the end of scriptural Judaism.� There were four types of Jewish sects:
Sadducees: they ended up priests to the Samaritans whom they hated.
Essenes:� Crushed by the Romans
Zealots:� Crushed also
Pharisees: these were the only ones left.
The Pharisees reestablished themselves into the form you see now.� Instead of sacrifice they now focus on prayer and scripture.� They started weeding out books, which didn�t meet their criteria.
Around c90 the Jewish canon began to close.� Most of the books were ones that had the strongest references to the resurrection.� The point is that there was no closed canon in the 1st century of Judaism; the Church used the current set of books because there are the books the Jews used and taught from.
New Testament Written
The New Testament was written at this time. Around c60 AD was Paul�s letters. John�s was around 92 with a second edition around 96.
Between 30 � 60 AD was the period of apostolic formation of the Church.� Some letters to Timothy & Paul may be the merging of multiple letters but it was all in one place by the death of John the Apostle.
Pattern of Structure/Papal Authority
Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch & Alexandria were basic patterns & structure of society which we see today.� The Bishops exchanged letters.
The Pope was in Rome and administration is seen emphasizing papal authority even when John was in Ephasis.� In the year 110 Ignatius of Antioch mentions Rome as �presiding in charity over other churches�.� This clearly shows that Papal authority existed then.
Question: Are all individual churches having the same amount of orthodoxy?� For instance, as we can go throughout the diocese and get a �variety� of orthodoxy, was it like that in the Early Church?
Answer: Apostles trained the Church in the same way. Then they would train a bishop to stay in that place as they moved on.� There were variations in different places, but we don�t know how much.
