July 23, 2002 The Early Church's First 300 Years: Part 2 of 2
by Fr. Stephen Dominic Hayes, O.P.
This is an extremely compressed version of the history of the Church from around 100 - 315.
First date: 90 - 96. Death of John the Evangelist. From him what passes from the earth is a certain period where the spirit of God interacts with the Church. Second date, council of Nicea, 325.
What is happening at this time between 96 and 325.
Church at this time is a prescribed religion, although there was the persecution by Nero and others.
Christians were accused of secret cannibalism by the way they talk about Communion. This can prove that the idea of Jesus in the Eucharist is really old.
In this period we find Rome changing. Augustus dies and what we know of the empire is gone. The empire is still growing and continues until the year 200 and then administration gets harder. The empire�s dependence on the legions to keep things together and there was never really more than 22 of them from Britain to Persia.
As the legions found they 'made' the empire, they started making their generals candidates for the throne. So in turn the Caesar would limit the # of people in the legions.
The empire became dependant on auxilia and federati (sp) which were actually units of tribes or mercenary units taken from German tribes. The Romans had this idea that if you take troops from the local people the locals wouldn't fight them. The core that held the empire together got smaller and thinner as the empire got bigger. Eventually it began to crash down, especially when more barbarians started migrating.
This is important because you will find that instead of relying on hard-core legions, we find them more and more dependence on auxilia and federati.
Where was the Church?
The life of the Church when we left off had spread to the major centers of the world. She was more than a national or imperial reality.
In Iraq, you have the Caldean Church and the Church in India converted by St. Thomas the apostle. You can see Christian monuments and graves as far as China.
So the missionaries got well out of the empire but with regard to the eastern empire they were limited to the reaches of the Atlantic ocean. We see stuff in Africa and south and what's now Ethiopia and the Sudan but there is the Sahara which limits the evangelization to the South. There were vigorous churches on the Northern Africa seacoast. Spain & Britain also had churches.
The roads built for the troops were also used to spread the faith.
The centers of Christianity at this point are primarily urban. This is where the Jewish communities originally were. The communities are also in connection with each other. Paul's letters show he sends missionaries and others to various communities with scrolls and letters which were read in the churches and copied.
Here is the beginning of the use of text which is relevant to the pattern of the use of text in Judaism; recognizing certain works as inspired by God.
How Persecution comes about.
As the empire continues into the second and third century Paul sees an apostolism in emperors which shows them as wanting too much power; becoming divinity.
Periodically these horrid rulers were removed by force and we got good emperors in. What are they interested in doing? Justice.. justice owed to people and to the Gods. So 'good' emperors emphasized being good citizens and worshipping at the temple and the 'best' emperors were the most vicious persecutors of Christians. Christians were seen as division and not unity. Christianity wasn't the only religion seen this way either.
Christians have a problem because they won't sacrifice to the idols and they wouldn't serve in the army. The Jews had special rules because they helped out Caesar in the Roman civil war.
Persecutions of the Early Christians.
Christians during this period were not continuously persecuted. The Church functioned illegally but during the 'bad' emperors there wasn't any persecution because nobody cared about that. As time goes on as we approach the year 300, the latter persecutions are the most bloody and awful, like the one under Diocletian.
The Church functioned illegally but there are ways around the law. The Church could meet in the house of a wealthy patron. St. John Lateran is like this, the hill where the church now stands used to be owned by the Latterani.
As the persecutions grew they got rather sophisticated. We find governors giving instructions on how you should interrogate. There were reasons to denounce people as Christians. The governor acquires evidence and there was a test. If you're accused then stand before an idol and offer incense to the god. if you do, you're given a certificate to say that you worshipped and you are okay. If you do that, of course, you have then rejected Christ and have sinned gravely.
During this period the Church isn't able to hold a lot of property. When they persecute they destroy books, records, assets, and especially go after the clergy. There is a disproportionate number of priests and bishops that are put to death. They try to cut the head off the organization.
In the face of this opposition the Church continues to pull herself together by the normal means. That is the communication with the bishops.
Question:
Christians didn't serve in the army? Why?
At this point the Church didn't want to kill, how could you know what is a just killing and if Christ was coming soon then they didn't want to be caught in sin.
Question:
How do you deal with the fundamentalist who will twist that Babylon being the modern church of Rome?
One thing is that this is written at the time when Rome is pagan Rome, you can't compare this to the current Rome because it's a different city.
Writing in the Early Church
During this period in terms of the writing, you find a number of kinds of books being turned out. Like apologetic works as the defense of the faith so it's a protection of the people. The letter to Dionetis is a long tract defending the Church. People like Justin the Martyr, he is an interesting character, one way he converted people is he took off some of the secrecy and made it into a way that people could understand. He wore philosopher's robes and taught from the idea of a philosopher.
You find him engaging in public dialog with pagans and Jews. He battles Jews from a scriptural point of view.
Heresies
One of the difficulties that sprang up was there were heresies popping up. Sometimes it's within the Church and sometimes outside the Church, trying to incorporate something into Christianity from something else.
Gnostics
Gnostics popped up taking ideas of Christ and writing Gospels of Christ and changing it to the way they want to portray it. They purported a dualism about Christ. St. Iraneas of Leon deals with Gnostics and others in detail. Most of the Gnostics were characterized by, the only thing that counts is spirit. Saying that Christ was never really incarnate.
c200: Arians.
Arians start within the Church unlike the Gnostics. Most all Heresies begin with a way to attempt to explain simply some truth of the Faith. This one tried to explain how God could be Father and Son at the same time. Arias was a priest of Alexandria in Egypt. The way this heresy went was that Jesus is created as the primary and first and highest of God's creation. So he says there was a time when the Son was not, and he said this explains it. Jesus has been placed over this universe by the most high God, who is His Father and Creator as God over this universe.
Problem with this is that it's inaccurate, John chapter 1 states in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. We know Jesus to be the Word of God so what Arias is teaching is contrary to the Gospel. This became a major problem in the Church. There was clash that couldn't be put together. So for instance, when a bishop was elected, mostly the bishops were chosen by the people and another bishop came and ordained. Well, there would be rival factions putting forth their own candidates and there would be riots. This was especially in the east.
Arians sent missionaries too. (This heresy isn't put down for almost 600 years.) German tribes were converted to Arianism. So later in the 400's when the German tribes were being converted, they were Arians and not pagans.
Within the empire, Arianism began to divide churches and bishops were scrambling on which way to talk about the Lord. (Which language should they use.) The Church here is fragmented.
Montenism
Montenism was a heresy about the Holy Spirit which was characterized by the use of charismatic gifts. Speaking in tongues, prophecy and so forth. With some of these people, you did have a big charismatic streak, up to the 270's. You have some of the works of this heresy as part of early Church literature reflecting this like revelation. For instance the work, Shepard of Hermis. This was almost included in the Canon.
This was the revelations of a man called Hermes, which had visions of Jesus. Jesus supposedly said there would only be one penance. So in the end people adopted this and after you're Baptized you have to go to Penance 1 time and that's it. So.. you didn't want to waste your 1 time early in your life, you'd wait until the last moment to receive the sacrament.
The practice of suffering for others.
At this time many in the Church believed there were four sins, apostasy, idolatry, murder, adultery could not be forgiven. The pattern of penance was different during this period. If you became a Christian you had to be courageous because of the persecutions. There was a problem, not everybody who was asked to offer incense refused, believe it or not, and these were lapsed Christians. They had committed apostasy and in some jurisdictions you couldn't be forgiven for this, a bishop would consider themselves unable to forgive this sin.
What could they do? Well they got 'letters' from martyrs. The martyr in prison would give a letter saying they would do penance for them and that would be good enough for some bishops to give absolution. Martyrs were seen as the image of Christ and were considrered to go straight to heaven after their death.
This set forth the practice of doing penance for someone else or suffering for other people. Indulgences come from this pattern of life in the Church. Sometimes people who didn�t get martyred but were scheduled to before being released by a 'bad' emporer, these were called confessors. They were considered the next best thing to being a martyr and they would also write these letters.
So here you have a problem with the administration of the Sacraments. There were a number of disputes about whether or not these sins could be forgiven at all. This was a result of a famous discussion between Cornelius and Saint Cyprian. Cornelius made the decision that all penitents would be given absolution with a harsh penance.
The shape of the clergy.
When you start a Christian life you believe you'll be put to death for your faith. Lots of people started living celibate lives for the sake of the kingdom. The practice of celibacy comes from this but wasn't required at this time but there was the idea that once you were ordained, you didn't live your marital life out although you'd still be married. The wife would have to agree with this too before ordination.
Sometimes it would be hard to find candidates. Men were physically dragged forward by the people. The people would recognize that he had a vocation but the candidate obviously couldn't see that so they had to force him.
You also have lay people imitating this celibate life. Not only people who remained celibate for the sale of Jesus and their life with Him but also those who were married who remained celibate for the coming of Jesus. In the present day this would be discouraged. This practice did produce some great Saints though.
Eastern and Western Church
The Church is growing here in the urban areas especially. The Eastern Church was extremely Christian by the 300's and in the West we find less diversity because there are fewer cities and further apart. Diocletian divided the line of the empire and this exacerbated the idea of an Eastern and Western Church. And this has come along to the present day, believe it or not, Eastern and Western Europe very close to the line.
One side the liturgical language was Greek (East) and they regularly took bishops from Antioch and Alexandria and other Eastern places. In the West there was just Rome, that's why there are lots of Eastern rites and only one Western rite.
Constantine
There were many Roman wars. Several attempts to control the Roman empire which was eventually settled by Constantine. The story goes that the emperor had a vision showing "in this sign you will triumph" and it was the Christian Cross. He put it on his shields.
When he was crowned he allowed many religions but didn't actually make Christianity the official religion of the empire. He was, however, a great supporter and he backed the Christian Church rather than the cults. His mother is a great Christian and did pilgrimages and had churches built. Constantine used the Church to make his empire a more cohesive unit by sending priests as missionaries to keep the people happy, etc. He didn't abolish paganism but he limited it's practices and didn't become a Christian until his death bed so that he should be the "emperor of all".
People who held public office were not Christians, because he may have to mete out a death sentence even to preserve their own life so they didn't become Christians although they may remain Catechumens. This is why some early couples held off Baptism for their children for the reason if they sinned they could expect 40 years of sack cloth and ashes. So they waited to have them become Christians until they got past the hard times in life.
In 325 Constantine calls the first council of Nicea. And this addresses the Arian heresy. The Nicene Creed was created to express the orthodox faith in a different language, mainly to address the Arians... "begotten, not made". What we find now is a pattern of councils to resolve doctrinal problems.
Questions:
How was the religion in early Christianity, were they more uniform?
No, there were distinctive practices from the beginning. For instance the feast of Easter in some places was always on the Jewish Passover. But to continue to do this would make christianity dependant on the Jewish religion and that wasn't what they wanted so a standard formula was established.
Is there a liturgy of St. Mark?
That's the Coptic liturgy from Alexandria. In the West there were several usages at the time but we don't have a lot of liturgical references, there is some information about it.
When were the seven Sacraments clearly defined?
At this point there is a question about how many Sacraments there were. Not until the Medieval times were the Sacraments defined.
