September 19, 2006 In The Beginning: The Early Years of the Church

by Msgr. Frank Lane
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This topic is huge and it could go on for years, so I thought I would focus on a few small things that might give us a little bit more understanding of some of the strains and stresses within the modern church. The issues we face through the centuries remain fairly consistent.

We have a tendency to think that "these times" we haven't been through this before and that's normally not the case. In many ways, we face these issues continuously. There is a tention between fallen human nature and the divine.

We are afflicted with our finite nature and so we're not completely at ease with infinitude/perfection/transcendence. So, the tendency is to try to pull everything down around ourselves and make ourselves the center of what things are about.

It's interesting to note, that Modern Church architecture has been decided that it was very important that it be reduced to the human scale. We pull ceilings down, put carpeting everything and made it 'comfy'. We made them like every other building in our lives so we didn't feel alienated or dimished by the grandure of the building.

For example, St. Margaret of Cortona was built in the 60's. And I remember one committee meeting a woman said need to do something about the huge space in the sanctuary to bring the ceiling down because it's just too high. But the whole structure of the building is to raise us up beyond ourselves and our size to raise us up in the air. Just like the old Gothic architecture.

So it's important to look at the development of the Church as an institution and what that means in our relationship with God.

• The Christian Jews
  • St. Bernard of Clairvough that he saw the Christian community in many ways as the continuation of the synagogue.
  • In the early days all the Christians were Jews and they continued to meet in the synagogue.
  • Tensions developed.
  • The Christian Jews were talking about the Resurrection and this was divisive within Judaism. Pharisees believed in the Ressurection but the Saggucees did not.
  • Others didn't want to talk about or Accept Jesus because he was a criminal and they didn't want to pin their messianic hopes on a 'loser'.
  • So, the Jews started to throw the Christians out of the Synagogues.
  • The second thing is that they would gather on the Sabbath but they would also celebrate the Lord's Supper on the next day.
  • This would cause tensions due to breaking unity with the Synagogue.
  • This was also the source of the arguments with Paul and Peter, can you be a Christian without becoming a Jew.
  • Can you bypass the synagogue and celebrate the Lord's Supper without first becoming a Jew?
  • As more Gentiles were converting converting the Judaism (and the circumcision) was becoming less desireable and less possible.
• Being Expelled from the Synagogue caused problems for the Christians
  • The whole mediteranian world was ruled by the empire, it was a brutal and bloody regime.
  • The Jews had managed to work out for themselves a safety place within the Roman Empire. They called it "Isopolitea" the "Independant community"
  • Rather than exterminate all the Jews they granted an exception to them.
  • The Jesus did not have to acknowledge the Roman gods. The Christians were safe as long as they were in the synagogues.
  • When the Christians were kicked out of the synagogues it was often done publically in front of Roman judges to make it known that they were not part of the Jewish Community.
  • Immediately, the Christians were required to worship the Roman gods. But they were too numerous geographically for them to make another exception.
  • The christians were persecuted not for being Christians, but for treason; not honoring the Roman gods.
  • Christians were also normally urban lower-class people. This is why in the writings in St. Paul the people who were of higher class were pointed out.
  • When Nero burned the city, the historian Tassatus said that Nero had no right to do what he did, but "it wasn't like they didn't deserve it" when referring to the Christian areas that were burned.
  • Tassatus also remarked that Christians were "haters of humanity" referring to the rumors that they were canabalists due to how they ate the flesh and blood of a man.
  • So, you have lower-class citizens, who offend the Roman gods and are canabalists. These Christians were truly loathesome in the eyes of the Romans.
  • This is one of the earliest references we have to the Eucharistic practices of the Early Church.
• The Church starts to take on an Identity of it's own as a separate Church.
  • Many christians at this time (around 70ad) were still Jews. There is a mixture of Gentile and Jew
  • The upperclass Gentiles and jews didn't associate with the Christians
  • One reason was because the social disgrace of the person around whom the Christian Cult centered.
    • Jesus was from Galilea which was like from the back woods somewhere.
    • He came into Rome as a disturber of the good order.
    • Accused of treason and killed the way the commoners were killed
  • Christianity began to become a community of people gathered around initially one of the apostles.
  • The apostles appointed other leaders when they were not able to be there.
  • The apostles became the center of unity for the local communities.
  • As early as 70ad Pope Clement is mediating disputes. And issuing correctives to christian communities.
  • We find early witnesses to the fact that Peter becomes the sign of the universal unity of the Christian community. It's not out of place, therefore that he ends up in Rome; the center of the known world.
  • At this time we have an "Ecclesia". It takes it's name from the synagogue. It means "The assembly" or community of believers.
  • So, instead of a council of leaders in the synagogue, you start to have apostles and those who were appointed as the singular head of the assembly.
  • You have Ecclesiae or communities of believers headed by apostles or by those appointed by them, celebrating the Lord's supper within the 70's.
  • So, when did this Catholic Doctrine begin? (The eating of the Body and Blood of Christ.) It began as early as we have any history about it.
  • This is inadequate, Is the Church only an assembly of people surrounding an apostle or one appointed by an apostle?
  • The Church needs to go through two more stages of development.
    • The Christians begin to assemble in buildings (not just in people's homes) and start to associate with a structure.
    • The issue with this is that there is a connection, a federation of sorts. There is a center of unity of these communities which is the Bishop of Rome.
    • There is an accountability to the person who is the center of the community, who is Peter.
      • Matthew 16:18 was believed, by protestants to be inserted at a later time.
      • But they changed their thinking on that and now say that there is no indication that this was to extend beyond the lifetime of St. Peter.
      • If you think about it, it would have been a waste of the Lord's time for him to put him in charge and then let it go.
    • The members of the Community were intrigal members of the community. This extends to today. There are no visitors in a Catholic Church, we are all universally connected.
    • The Church was looking for a visible structure of unity in the 200's. Oregen the theologian provided that. He said the Roman Empire as a universal entity, was the overarching structure of the emerging Christian community.
    • The impact of this meant that missionary activity outside the empire began to stop. Christianity began structurally identified within the borders of the empire.
    • Only the Arians, the heresy worked outside the empire. They had a bishop named Ufulas who was very aggresive. He translated the scriptures into Gothic. The Gothic Nations became very important. Spain and northern Italy became Arians. The Arian heresy said Jesus was not Divine.
    • Enclosing Christianity into the empire is where we get Roman Catholic from. We were NOT the Arians. North of the Danube and East of the Rhine.
• The Church becomes more Visible
  • The very word, Church, comes into being not from the Greek Ecclesia but from the Greek Kiracom (sp) That which belongs to the Kirios, the Lord. What it referred to was the buildings.
  • The Assembly moves into something that belongs to the Lord, and in that step, you have a stronger development that the Church is not just fellowship but it's a visible entity.
  • If we use "Assembly" we also have to use "Church"
  • Pope Gregory the Great was the one who reinstituted the apostolic activities of the Church. Augustine went to England.
  • When the identity of the Church was sufficiently strong, missions started up again.
  • Patrick was sent mostly to minister to the risidual Roman communities instead of converting the whole Island.
  • You have a developing consciousness of the Ecclesia and the Kirche. It grows as the church matures. It becomes a tangible visible community.
  • The assemblies lose their autonomy by meeting in the Kirche which belongs to God.
  • Every Assembly that moves into a Church, is joined together to participate in the universal worship of the people of God in relationship with the God that the recognize as universal and transcendant.
• Modern Problems
  • The whole problem with the reformation was "Let's go back to the early church" does that mean we should be going back to the synagogue and be jews and circumcized? Or does it mean to belong to the assembly under the guidance of the local bishop? Or go back to be citizens of the Roman Empire?
  • There is a kind of Mormon Catholicism... at some point in time, the Holy Spirit abandoned the Church until in 1965 we put it all back together again. We finally have guidance now after so many years.
  • The whole notion that our development is not done in the Holy Spirit is blatent heresy.
  • This same mindset formed the Mormon Church.
  • We cannot reject our past!
  • We cannot be closed to the possibilities of the future either.

Great questions followed the talk, listen to the audio to hear them.