On Leaving a Place

On Sunday night Alison and I left the congregation that we have called home for the last eight and a half years. It was an evening filled with mixed emotions; we're part of a team that was being sent out from the congregation to, under God, launch a new congregation this coming Easter. It's exciting to step out like this in a fresh way and see what God does with that. Last Sunday was also tinged with sadness. There are lots memories stored up after eight and a half years, significant friendships formed, and significant steps taken in my knowledge, love, and service of God. It was hard to say goodbye. It was the building where we were married seven years ago. And of all the things I will miss, beyond the memories and the people, is the beauty of the building itself. I will miss partaking in the aesthetic quality of another age. I will miss watching the sun of an early morning flame through the stained glass in a panoply of colour against the sandstone.

The hairs on my neck stand up as I write this. It seems almost to small, to insignificant, to silly to pause and comment on. Indeed, if the church building is just a rain shelter or a sun shade, then my affections seem terribly trivial and misplaced. That is unless place, space, and beauty actually matter. For too long now we've taken our cue for church design from public school assembly halls: cheap, functional, and uninspiring. Our ecclesiastical aesthetic has developed a taste for the look and smell of a teenagers bedroom. So concerned have we become that someone might mistake a parochial building as the dwelling place of God Almighty, that we have gone out of way to make our places of worship ugly. Apathy towards beauty led to a blandness of design.

Do not mistake this a cry against functionality (which is very important), or even a rally for neo-Gothic architecture. I intend no such thing. Instead my realization after the last eight an a half years is that our aesthetic tastes communicate something. Our Christian forebears, often derided as superstitious, knew this. They built buildings appropriate for their time, fitting for the worship of the maker of all things, which conveyed the logic of the gospel: that God is in himself infinite beauty, that we care about this world and this place because we look forward to the day when it will be made new, and we invite you to leave your life that has been scarred and misshapen by sin and enjoy the beauty of the life of the Triune God.

Jean Cauvin includes a wonderful discussion in The Institutes of the Christian Religion (chapter XI) on the second commandment and the failure of the church in his day, amid the proliferation of icons, to educate and teach people. Yet for all his insight, what is striking is Cauvin's omission of the incarnation of Jesus, the "the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being". "We have seen his glory" writes the Evangelist, and in that glory, according to David Bentley Hart, we see the beautiful:

The beautiful is not a fiction of desire, nor is its nature exhausted by a phenomenology of pleasure; it can be recognized in despite of desire, or as that toward which desire must be cultivated. There is an overwhelming givenness in the beautiful, and it is discovered in astonishment, in an awareness of something fortuitous, adventitious, essentially indescribable; it is known only in the moment of response, from the position of one already addressed and able now only to reply. This priority and fortuity allow theology to hear, in the advent of beauty, the declaration of God’s goodness and glory, and to see, in the attractiveness of the beautiful, that creation is invited to partake of that goodness and glory. So say the Psalms: “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.” Beauty thus qualifies theology’s understanding of divine glory: it shows that glory to be not only holy, powerful, immense, and righteous, but also good and desirable, a gift graciously shared; and shows also, perhaps the appeal – the pleasingness – of creation to God. In the beautiful God’s glory is revealed as something communicable and intrinsically delightful, as including the creature in its ends, and as completely worthy of love; what God’s glory necessitates and commands, beauty shows also to be gracious and inviting; glory calls not only for awe and penitence, but also for rejoicing.

The particularity of Christ's advent means that we are yet to see his glory. But over the last eight and a half years we have seen that glory reflected in the lives of our brothers and sisters as the gospel was proclaimed and we peacefully served one another. And we also glimpsed it in the splendour of that place, built and consecrated by God's people for the praise of his glory.

Parish Matters

Geography and Creation

At heart, the decline of the parish system is a neo-Platonic view of the world that has shadowed Christianity for two millennia. The modernist project of reducing humans to their mind and reason jettisoned Christianity’s anthropological conviction that we are embodied creatures, leaving in its wake a church with nothing to say about the emotions, about beauty, and about place. This is part of what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor refers to as the excarnation; a disembodied Christianity that seperated the "physical" from the "spiritual".

Admittedly there are mitigating circumstances for this development. The transitions of cities from the original space you could move around by foot to suburbia, not only allowed for the sprawl of mountains beyond mountains of suburbs with no end in sight, but also gave people for the first time freedom to chose where they work, live and play. At the same time as the 20^th century saw the construction of countless miles of freeways, customary geographical loyalties began to breakdown. No more were you bound to buy bread from the shop around the corner. No more were you bound to play sport for the team of your local area, let alone support them. I grew up supporting the Balmain Tigers in Rugby League, without ever living within traditional Tiger territory.

Churches adjusted to this commuter consumption, competing against each other to have the better preaching, the better children’s ministry, the better whatever itch I want scratched. And in the process they frequently severed the connections with the local community, drawing upon an ever expanding area to draw members from. One consequence of this was the emergence of homogenous congregations based around age, culture, or occupation. 

The result was that at a time in Western history when the church was becoming increasingly marginalised from society, individual churches sat in an uneasy relationship with their local community. And whether intentionally or unintentionally, what this mode of church communicated was a disinterest in space, in place, in locality. As if life in the Christian community and mission could be conducted without any reference to these three things. It exhibits a staggeringly unreflective attitude towards matter, having more to do with a disembodied dualism that one would struggle to find in Scripture: the Christian is focused upon the God who is named as the maker of all things, the same God who took on flesh and blood, becoming incarnate when his creation was placed in bondage. This same God triumphed over his enemies that had sought to oppress and destroy his good creation, rising from the grave and sending his church out into all the world, making disciples of all gentiles. And the Christian hope is firmly fixed on the day when God will come and dwell amongst his people and creation is set free from sin, death and evil once and for all. Thus New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham can describe the Christian narrative as driven towards the universal realization of God's kingdom in all creation.

“God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Israel and Jesus in order to be the God of all people and the Lord of all things. Moreover, in the narrative world of the Bible the people of God is also given its identity in this movement from the particular to the universal, an identity whose God-given dynamic we commonly sum up in the word 'mission'. God, God's people and God's world are related to each other primarily in a narrative that mediates constantly the particular and the universal."

The often heard objection to the parish system is that locality is irrelevant. The argument is made that in today’s mobile and transaction world, people are more closely tied to social and professional networks beyond their local neighbourhood. However this is a highly contested assertion amongst sociologists and demographers; researchers have found that in contemporary western societies social networks are still significantly embedded in local places.^[1] Geography is a massively important feature of people's experience of life (cf. Bauckham). The local neighbourhood remains a central space for community. 

The Parish and Creation

Stanley Hauerwas has recently stated that “The parish is the ecclesial form that has tied the church to place.” The assumption behind the parish system was the belief that “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!’” Working from this assumption, the whole world was organised into dioceses and parishes. The purpose behind this was not territorialism or factionalism; that was be a disaster. Christ's victory includes a victory of the principalities and powers, the elementary forces of the world that divide and enthral humans. The parish system was neither about dividing up the world for the sake of drawing boundaries on a map. The intent of the parish system was that in every part of the world, there would be a church responsible for proclaiming the gospel in that area and ministering to local the community – the cure of souls as it was once described. 

There have many problems with the parish system over the years. This has been particularly true when (the sometimes arbitrary) lines on a map are treated as sacrosanct for all time, like the law of the Medes. But even then, this problem is symptomatic of the failure of churches to trust one another and work together. Nevertheless, the parish system was a design intended to point the church outwards to the world. It has stood as a reminder that churches do not exist for themselves, but are a part of God’s mission to bring all things under the lordship of Christ. It is a design that reminds us that salvation is for all people; that, at least in the Anglican context in which I come from, we are not attempting to reach only the rich, the poor, the cool, the young, the old, the professional, the tradie, the culturally homogenous etc. The diversity of any particular parish church would reflect the diversity of the church universal, and in doing so reflect the unity of both the universal and local church that confesses on Lord and one God. Reflecting on the Sydney Diocese's Connect09 campaign, Andrew Nixon had this to say:

"I know the parish system (or more accurately parochialism) presents many difficulties for our diocese. Whenever you form people into tribes and draw lines on maps you just know that sin will be crouching at the door. Yes, there are problems. But I pray that we can address and overcome them together...What is wonderful about the parish structure is that it is suited to local mission; it covers everyone. It says that together, we will take responsibility for every soul in our area, every square inch of our city. Even the hard places."

Surprisingly, the word parish has its origins in Koine Greek. The word as we have it today is first attested to in the thirteenth century, derived from medieval French paroisse, which in turn from Latin, paroecia. But there is good evidence that parish was first introduced into England during the late 600’s by eighth Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore of Tarsus. Theodore referred to Anglo-Saxon towns as paroikia, a term which comes directly from the Septuagint and the New Testament (πάροικος – adjective; Acts 7:6, 29; Ephesians 2:19; 1 Peter 2:11. παροικία – noun; Acts 13:17; 1 Peter 1:17). In the New Testament πάροικος and παροικία are both used by the Apostle Peter to describe the identity of Christians. They are aliens and strangers to those they live alongside, living as exiles in the world. This transient nature of Christian living feels as far removed from the sense to parish as you could get. Yet πάροικος carries with it a sense of permanence about it too. It is the word used in Acts to describe Israel's 400 year stay in sojourn in Egypt before entering the promised land. Likewise Peter’s description is not of temporary aliens; the Christians he writes too are long-term sojourners in a foreign land. That is how the term was used in early Christian literature, such as 1 Clement: 

“From the παροικοῦσα of the Church of God at Rome, to the παροικούσῃ of the Church of God as Corinth…”

The early Christians saw themselves as colonies (that is the word used for παροικοῦσα in the Stamforth translation) of heaven, living in the world in anticipation of the new creation. 

In fact, this is at the heart of classic Anglican missiology. Although unmentioned by the Articles of Religion and The Ordinal, and generally assumed by the Book of Common Prayer, the parish system remains the Anglican missiology – seeking to serve all people. This is part of Paul Barnett’s “Ten Elements of Historic Anglicanism”, namely that "‘historic Anglicanism’ affirms both creation and society. It is concerned with the common good, for the ‘welfare of the city,’ to use Jeremiah’s words.” The parish system grounds the church’s mission in the creation that is groaning, awaiting the unveiling of the children of God. It stands as a reminder that churches do not exist for themselves, but are a part of God’s mission to bring all things under the lordship of Christ.

---

^[1] cf. Oldenburg (1999), The great good place: cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of the community. On this point I am indebted to conversations with Alison Moffitt.

Moments of Recapitulation

Here is an interesting and novel thought: what the Church does in ministry should reflect what the gospel is. I've been spurred along in this idea recently by Tim Keller, who argues that the gospel should fundamentally shape our doing of ministry. Following DA Carson, Keller argues that the gospel consists of three moments in Jesus life: 

1. The Incarnation (what Keller describes as the upside-down aspect of the gospel) where Jesus, though he was rich, became poor, and made himself the servant of all. This creates a community of service, where people live out an alternative way of being human, seeking neither moral, financial or social superiority.
2. The Atonement (the inside-out aspect of the gospel), which speaks of the way we are justified by grace and not by works. Grasping this changes the way we relate to God, to others and ourself.
3. The Resurrection (the forward-back aspect of the gospel); Jesus is reigning now, and Christian live in the light of this reality, looking forward to the day when Jesus ushers in the new creation. So now we live by faith, hope and love, especially love.

Few churches will follow through on the implications of the gospel: the upside-down, inside-out, forward-back kingdom. But for Keller, the gospel is the Christian life, and the church that comprehends the Gospel of Jesus Christ will "champion and cultivate" all three aspects of the gospel.

Oliver O'Donovan proposes a similar idea in The Desire of the Nations, that the Church's life and ministry is a recapitulation of Jesus's own life and ministry. And what we see in the sacraments is a visual reflection of Jesus own kingdom announcement. O'Donovan traces God's political authority within Israel. The Lords reign is, first, an exercise of power that gives Israel victory or salvation; it is, second, the execution of judgment or justice within Israel; and it is, third, the establishment of Israel's communal identity as a people existing over time (an identity connected at first with the land and, later, with possession of the law). These three aspect summarize what it means to say that the Lord rules as king in Israel, and a fourth aspect is added by O'Donovan. The Lords rule is acknowledged—though not established—in the praise Israel, as a worshiping community, offers (which incidentally, provides a stinging critique of liberalism's view of authority).

These four aspects of God's kingship are recapitulated in the career of Jesus. He does mighty works of power that bring salvation; he proclaims the judgment of Israel; he reforms the understanding of the law upon which the identity of a restored Israel is based. The praise that acknowledges Gods rule corresponds now to faith that recognizes the reign of God in Jesus.These four moments are 

1. the advent of Christ to save 
2. the passion of Christ in which the judgment of the world is given
3. the restoration of Christ, which affirms Israel's new identity in its representative
4. the exaltation of Christ, the coronation of the one who has triumphed over the powers that oppose Gods rule.

Christ is the head over the church, and O'Donovan argues that these moments of his Kingship are recapitulated within the church's life. They structure the church:

"The church represents God's Kingdom by living under its rule, and by welcoming the world under its rule. It recapitulates the Christ-event  in itself, and so proclaims the Christ-event to the world. The Christ-event, then, is the structuring principle for all ecclesiology, holding the key both to the church’s spontaneous ‘catholic’ existence and to its formal structure."

As Chris Swann has noted before, their are four moments that enact the distinctive shape of the church’s identity:

1. Advent – gathering community – Baptism. Marked by the sign of baptism, the Church now gathers to herself those who acknowledge Jesus as Lord
2. Passion – suffering community – Eucharist. Marked by the sign of the Eucharist, the Church now suffers—paradigmatically in her martyrs, but in countless other ways as well.
3. Resurrection – glad community – Keeping the Lord’s Day. Marked by the sign of her keeping of the Lords day as a little Easter, the Church now rejoices in the restoration of the creation.
4. Exaltation – community that speaks the words of God – Laying on of Hands. Marked by the sign of the laying on of hands, the Church now speaks Gods word in prophecy and prayer.

O'Donovan is in agreement with Keller, that churches have often been tempted to understand themselves in terms of one of these “moments” alone—as marked by mission alone, by suffering alone, by triumph alone, or by social responsibility alone. But such truncated understandings cannot recapitulate the narrative coherence of the moments in the story of Christ.

It's quite a big claim, "the structuring principle for all ecclesiology". And it's different to other accounts I hear of the Church's life and mission. Yet I find it quite compelling, that the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the true Israel, orders the Church, giving it cohesion and definition.

Postscript
At this point it may seem that O'Donovan sees fours in everything, as O'Donovan also offers a tantalizing, though fleeting, correlation between these four moments of recapitulation and the order of ministry within the church:

1. church gathers – ministry of recognising Christians – primatial bishop
2. church suffers – ministry of suffering service – deacon
3. church recovers creation order – ministry of instruction – presbyter-bishop
4. church as prophet – ministry of diverse administration to build up the community – lay charism

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part V - Appendix

The Coming of Christendom Appendix: The Arian Controversy

9th Century Image of the
Council of Constantinople

Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V a | Part V b |Appendix

Readers of the previous post in this series may have been surprised when they noticed a sizable gap in the history of the third and fourth centuries. While there important political developments that occurred after Constantine’s rise to power in the early 300’s, some famous theological achievements also occurred to. Punctuated at either end of the century by the first and second ecumenical councils, the fourth century had been described as the achievement of orthodoxy. Indeed you are more than likely familiar with the narrative; that in the year 318 “a wicked Alexandrian presbyter called Arius chose to propound a doctrine of relation of the Son to the Father which was completely unorthodox and heretical, and which was condemned by the first General Council of the church in Nicaea in 325, but that by various means the base and crafty supporters of this heretical doctrine managed to keep the orthodox out of influential positions and to continue to propagate their wicked ideas for another 60 years after Nicaea, until, almost wholly through the selfless efforts of a noble and courageous champion of orthodoxy, Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, the their politics were frustrated, their heterodoxy exposed, and the truth enshrined” in the creed of the Council of Constantinople in 381 (Richard Hanson, The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the fourth century AD).

The problem with this account of history is that it bears no resemblance to what happened. Orthodoxy had been passed down for the proceeding three hundred years through the rule of faith, the Roman baptismal creed (which has most likely come to us as the Apostles Creed), the scriptures – primarily the fourfold Gospels, and the gospel itself. But across those preceding centuries emerged different strands relating to the theology of the person of Jesus: North African theologian Tertullian developed an idea of the ‘economic trinity’; Alexandrian Origen talked of the eternal generation of the Son. Even the language used to describe the relation between the Father and the Son – ousia, hypostasis, substantia, persona etc. ¬ had different meaning depending on whether you spoke Greek or Latin. The Arian controversy was one that resulted in determination of orthodoxy, rather than one consisting solely in the defense of orthodoxy.

When Arius’ teachings in Alexandria were brought to attention in 318, he found many supporters, such as Eusebius of Caesarea and the powerful Eusebius of Nicomedia, who understand him standing in one of these “orthodox” traditions. Arius’ doctrine may have been motivated by a rivalry between him and his bishop, Alexander. But at the heart of Arius’ struggle was an attempt to grasp with the metaphysical and soteriological implications of the New Testament’s witness of a suffering God. Exploiting the Hellenic philosophical heritage of the ancient world, the Arian answer to this issue was to postulate the existence of two gods: one high impassable God, and a lesser God who suffered for him. According to the eminent historian of this period Richard Hanson:

“The Arians were among the few theologians of the early church who seriously understood the scandal of the cross. But the price which they thought it necessary to pay for this theology was too high.”

As a lower God, the logos was of a different essence and status to the Father. Using philosophical logic, the Arian position reasoned that the Son, as the first born over creation (Colossians 1:15) was an emanation of the Father. He was important, but in the words of one Arian song of the day "There once was a time when the Son was not".

Nicaea was intended to end several years of back and forth between Arius and his supporters and Alexander and his supporters. Arius was exiled, the doctrine of Alexander and his young deacon Athanasius upheld, and almost all present at the council signed the Creed under Constantine’s pressure for one unified church and empire. But the words of the Nicene Creed only added to the confusion. It taught the Son was ‘from the substance’ of the Father, ‘consubstantial’ with him, and condemning anyone who taught that the Son was ‘from another hypostasis or ousia’. But what these two words meant could be interpreted by different sides. The word homoousios (same substance) was also inserted into the Creed because it had been specifically rejected by Arius. But given it’s etymology in Gnosticism, it too was disputed by the Arian supporters who continued on the fight after Nicaea – the subordinates led by Eusebius of Nicomedia. In its place was proposed the word homoiousios (like substance).

The Nature of the Debate

Athanasius
Patriarch of Alexandria

Debate continued for the next several decades over the interpretation of the words in the Creed. Athanasius (296-373) succeeded Alexander as Bishop of Alexandria in 328. He is famously said to have stood alone against the world in his defense of the Nicene position. Athanasius was exile five times over the course of his episcopacy with the rise and fall of theological parties at the Imperial court in Constantinople (although he was also ostracised for a period of twenty years for his abuse of power and use of violence in suppressing his enemies in Egypt). It was a debate that was largely conducted in Greek philosophical categories. All sides appealed to the Scriptures, and biblical language was used by both sides. Both sides then were driven to using the only alternative vocabulary at their disposal: Stoicism, Middle Platonism and Neo-Platonism. There was none other available. But it was language that was used for theological purposes rather than for strictly philosophical ends.

It was a debate that was carried out in the political sphere as well. Each party attempted to bring Constantine and his successors on side.

“And inasmuch as the peace and stability of the Empire was to some extent bound up with the peace and stability of the church, it was virtually unavoidable that the Emperor should become involved. But because the secular power was involved, it does not follow that the controversy was simply a story of man grasping at secular power under the mask of theology” – Hanson.

The majority of the theologians of the fourth century were bishops. They all had pastoral responsibility, charged with the spiritual welfare of their flocks, the men and women who held them account. “They were conscious of a praying and worshiping church” (Hanson). And the words they used to describe orthodoxy come from the word eusebia, which besides meaning ‘true’ and ‘correct’ meant ‘devout’ and godly’. It is a mistake to consider the debate of the fourth century as either an abstracted intellectual exercise, or the political machinations of a few. At the heart Christianity stood both monotheism and the worship of Jesus Christ (rather than the cult of a deified man). This was the faith for which thousands of Christians had in the preceding years died for. The two convictions needed to be reconciled.

Neo-Nicene movement towards 381

The process of reconciliation began in 362. The new pagan Emperor attempted to cause disruption to the church by recalling all exiled bishops. Athanasius returned to Alexandria and used the opportunity to gather Christians from both the Nicene and Subordinate parties. The Council of Alexandria allowed the term homoiousios to be reconciled with homoousios. This provided for people of orthodox persuasion to use homoiousios legitimately when describing the co-equal relationship of the Son to the Father. This was affirmed again at a council in Antioch in 363, and in a letter to the eastern churches from Pope Damasus. This new found unity moved the debate away somewhat philosophical concerns and back to the language to salvation and revelation.

“God become man, so that man might become God” – Athanasius, On the Incarnation

Gregory of Nazianzus
Patriarch of Constantinople

The long term effect of all this was to re-establish the prominence of the term homoousios, and a dispelling of the ambiguity which had been inherent in the term at Nicaea. And so emerged a new ‘Neo-Nicene’ orthodoxy—a fuller and more robust version of the theology which had initially been outlined at Nicaea. This Neo-Nicene faith was embodied primarily in the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus). It was their doctrinal acumen, with the support of Emperor Theodosius that laid the ground work for 381 by shifting the emphasis and grounds of debate. They denied that neither the Son nor the Spirit are subordinate to the Father, but are share an equality that is unaffected by the order with the Trinity. By doing so, they able to argue forcibly for the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus Christ:

 “The unassumed is the unredeemed” – Gregory of Nazianzus

The Council of Constantinople met from May-July 381. The most prominent feature of the Council of Constantinople was the adoption of a creedal statement, reaffirming and clarifying the Nicene position. Constantinople retained the inclusion of homoosiuos, and unequivocally stated the Jesus – and the Holy Spirit – is fully God: one ousia in three hypostases.  This was the solution to questions that had long vexed the church. It gave rise to other problems, such as the incarnation, but it excluded the Arian formulation of a high God beyond suffering and a lower God who may experience pain. Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers excluded the use of the pre-incarnate logos as a philosophical device to explain how a transcendent being could come into contact with transience and human experience without compromising himself. Jesus is either wholly God or he is not God at all. This is still the confession of the church through the Nicene‐Constantinopolitan Creed today.

“Athanasius above all recognised that if we take the New Testaments seriously we must concluded that Christ is not a safeguard God the Father involving himself with human affairs, but a guarantee that he has done so” – Hanson .

APPENDIX: Comparision of the Creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople*

The Nicene Creed (325)

The Nicene‐Constantinopolitan Creed (381)

We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is from the being of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, will come to judge the living and the dead; And in the Holy Spirit. But as for those who say, ‘There was when He was not,’ and ‘Before being begotten He was not,’ and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different substance or being, or is subject to alteration or change—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematises.

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came into being, who because of us men and because of our  salvation came down from the heavens, and was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, and was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose again on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures, and ascended to the heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no end; And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life‐giver, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son is together worshipped and together glorified, who spoke through the prophets; in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We confess one baptism for the remission of sins; we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen.

* Changes in the Nicene‐Constantinopolitan Creed italicized.

Further Reading:

Athanasius, On the Incarnation.

Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit.

Richard Hanson, The Achievement of Orthodoxy in the fourth century AD, The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. Rowan Williams, 1989.

Richard Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 1988.

Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, 2001.

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part V b

The Coming of Christendom cont.
Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V a |Appendix

“And now, all rising at the signal which indicated the emperor’s entrance, at last he himself proceeded through the midst of the assembly, like some heavenly messenger of God, clothed in raiment which glittered as it were with rays of light, reflecting the glowing radiance of a purple robe, and adorned with the brilliant splendour of gold and precious stones. Such was the external appearance of his person; and with regard to his mind, it was evident that he was distinguished by piety and godly fear.”   – Eusebius 

The largest gathering of Church leaders ever assembled at that point of time met on 20th of May 325 within the Imperial palace in Nicaea. Over 200 bishops and prelates from across the Roman Empire and the known world had come to Nicaea at the summons of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Although the church had been free from persecution for 12 years, the wounds of the past were still fresh in living memory. This was poignantly brought to mind when Constantine kissed the mutilated eye bishop Paphnutius of Thebes had lost during the last batch of persecutions. Here was the scion of the throne of Augustus, Nero and Diocletian, resplendent in purple and gold, embracing a former enemy of the Empire. The power of Rome was at the disposal of the church, and it remained to be seen how the body of Christ would respond.

It was that question which would shape much of the church’s story for the foreseeable future. Rome was not the first state to tolerate Christians. Nor was Rome the first state to officially accept Christianity as the state religion (which Rome did under the Emperor Theodosius in 391). But this was Rome. And the question of the church and state’s relationship was never far from surface in the theological tensions that punctuated the fourth century. 

One of the immediate responses to “Constantine’s Settlement” was a withdrawal from civil society. The monastic movement had been a growing phenomenon since St Anthony first ventured alone into the wilderness in 270. The monastic movement continued to grow in Egypt and Syria after Constantine’s consolation of power. It has been suggested that this growth had something to do with a growing discontent with the world. The blurring of the church and the world would lead some to maintain their purity in the Libyan Desert. They sought to maintain the separate society of the church amidst a corrupt world. It was this desire which also lead another group out of society.

When persecution broke out in Carthage and North Africa in 303, there were many clergy – including bishops – who handed Bibles over to be burnt by the authorities. With the coming of tolerance in 313, these clerics – described as traditors or surrenders – and other priests ordained by them were readmitted to the church. This was perceived by some as being undisciplined and unorthodox. A group of Christians led by the presbyter Donatus refused to recognise the Episcopal authority of the traditor Caecilian in Carthage, and insisted that traditors needed to be rebaptised and re-ordained. After initially appealing to Constantine to settle the matter, Donatus and his supporters split from the church, organizing their own society and church hierarchy (a similar split had happened in the North African church in the third century: the Novatianist controversy) . With their alternative society, by 350 the Donatist church was the largest church in North Africa. 

Besides withdrawing from society or creating distinct communities, the most common response to the new political situation was to openly embrace it. This can be seen in the many Arian officials who vied for the Emperors support between the councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. But perhaps the most well known ecclesiastical supporter for the new political climate was Eusebius of Caesarea. Eusebius’ work gave later imperial propagandists their foundation for giving the Emperor a place in the cosmic divine order. For Eusebius the ascension of Constantine completed Christ’s victory over the Roman tutelary deities. His argument followed the line of many second century apologists; that it was no accident that the church arose at the time when the world had been united under one political power. But Eusebius’s thesis was novel. The political world had been united under Augustus, the spiritual world united under Christ, and Constantine had united both realms in his body. It is with such eschatological certainty that Eusebius writes of the Christian revolution:

“The ancient oracles of the prophets, delivered to us in the Scripture, declare this; the lives of pious men, who shone in old time with every virtue, bear witness to posterity of the same; and our own days prove it to be true, wherein Constantine, who alone of all that ever wielded the Roman power was the friend of God the Sovereign of all, has appeared to all mankind so clear an example of a godly life.”

Constantine’s victory was God’s victory. But had the Parousia come in this Christian Emperor? It was not until the end of the fourth century that an alternative vision began to emerge. It was by-and-large Ambrose of Milan alone who articulated this vision (in the late fourth century Milan was arguably the most important city in Italy). Whilst “Constantine’s settlement” was seen to be a victory over the evil powers – Rome had come to obey Christ – this was not the eschaton. 

For Ambrose, Constantine and his successors might be Christians, but as earthly authorities they belonged to the old order of things. They would one day have to throw their crowns before Christ. Within the emerging movement we now know as Christendom, the task of the church was to remind the government of this. The rulers and authorities would have to one day give account of themselves before the Lord, and they were expected in the meantime to behave as a Christian (O’Donovan, 1996, p 199). And within the emerging Christian society, the church needed to remind itself that it was a separate polity, whose allegiance belonged first and foremost to the resurrected Jesus Christ. It was for this reason that Ambrose refused in 385 and 386 the request of the Emperor Valentinian II to make church buildings available for Arian worship. Ambrose refused to discuss the matter in the imperial palace, arguing that “Matters of faith should be handled in the church before the people.” The laity gathered with their bishop inside the church building, proved their identity as the Christian society. The church building took on a status akin to a modern embassy (O’Donovan, 1996, p 200).

In 390 Ambrose refused to admit Theodosius to communion for several months until he had done penance for the actions of his troops in massacring 7000 people in Thessalonica. Ambrose, who was neither ordained nor baptised when he was selected bishop, was able to require that the Emperor act like a Christian. His theology of church and state would be given further intellectual credence in the fifth century by his pupil Augustine of Hippo.




__________________________
The fourth century witnessed a revolution. It was a revolution won not through strength of arms, but through the obedience of faith as Rome bowed her knee to Christ. It was the beginning of a social, political and religious transformation that grew from the ground up. Contrary to some opinion, Christianity was not imposed from above; when the Emperor Julian attempted to dissolve “Constantine’s Settlement” in 361-363 and restore paganism within the Empire, he failed due to the entrenched nature of Christianity. He complained that:

“These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agape, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”

The fourth century begins the period known as Christendom, that cultural and political era that would last for 1500 years. It has in recent times been remarked that this period more so than any other did great damage to the progress of the gospel. There certainly was a temptation within the fourth century, as O’Donovan has noted, “to see the conversion of the rulers as achieved and complete, and to abandon mission.” But that would be to misunderstand Christendom. “Far from seeing Christendom...as an age in which the missionary challenge of the church became derailed, we have to understand that it was perpetually preoccupied with that challenge” (O’Donovan, 1996, p 197). For 300 years Christianity had sought the transformation of society, as individuals came to Christ. It should be expected than that after such widespread social change, that there would be political transformation too. With the population turning to Christ, it would be expected that their political leaders would seek to govern in such a way so as to confirm with the gospel. But this was never the goal of mission. Political transformation followed social transformation. Across the following centuries the church would struggle with knowing which response – Donatist, Eusebian or Ambrosian – to follow. The challenge was to remember that the new political situation was not the end of Christian mission. 





Further Reading: 
Oliver O'Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, CUP 1996.

Christianity in the Public Square

"We are but of yesterday, and yet we have filled all the places that belong to you — cities, islands, forts, towns, exchanges; the military camps themselves, tribes, town councils, the palace, the senate, the market-place; we have left you nothing but your temples."

- Tertullian, Plea For Allegiance

What Heaven Wants

I've been reading an article for college by William H. Willimon (of Resident Aliens fame) on the power of the Spirit of the Risen Jesus to create unity amongst cultural diversity and plurality.

The gospel is deferential and accommodating to no particular culture; rather, it is indoctrination, inculcation into a new and oddly based culture, namely the church. Thus Peter remembers Joel's prophetic vision of the crossing of gender, age, and social barriers (2:17-18). The result of Pentecostal empowerment by the Sprit is baptism (2:38), adoption by and enculturation into a new people, a holy nation, a light to all other nations, cultures, clubs, and means of human gathering. Thus many interpreters have seen Luke's list of hearers as an echo of the list of nations in Genesis 10. Pentecost is a day in which the linguistic divisions of Babel (Gen. 11) are healed. The same God who scattered the nations in order to prevent a united nations against God, now gathers and unites the nations in a new nation convened by God. The church is a sign on earth (2:19) of what heaven wants.

Willimon concludes the article with these heavy hitting words:

Acts says we are right to see the multicultural composition of our congregations as a kind of test of the fidelity of our preaching. I think Acts would also tell us that, whenever by the grace of God our preaching overcomes some cultural boundary, we are right to rejoice that God continues to work wonders through the word. Whenever we hear "multicultural" we are supposed to think "church," that peculiar cross-cultural people gathered by nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit.

It makes we wonder if we in increasingly diverse Sydney would meet this standard. "...[T]he multicultural composition of our congregations as a kind of test of the fidelity of our preaching."

Ash Wednesday

Prayers from the Service of Commination (for Ash Wednesday) from the BCP 1662.

"O LORD, we beseech thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins unto thee; that they, whose consciences by sin are accused, by thy merciful pardon may be absolved; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

O MOST mighty God, and merciful Father, who hast compassion upon all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made; who wouldest not the death of a sinner, but that he should rather turn from his sin, and be saved: Mercifully forgive us our trespasses; receive and comfort us, who are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins. Thy property is always to have mercy; to thee only it appertaineth to forgive sins. Spare us therefore, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed; enter not into judgement with thy servants, who are vile earth, and miserable sinners; but so turn thine anger from us, who meekly acknowledge our vileness, and truly repent us of our faults, and so make haste to help us in this world, that we may ever live with thee in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

TURN thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. Be favourable, O Lord, Be favourable to thy people, Who turn to thee in weeping, fasting, and praying. For thou art a merciful God, Full of compassion. Longsuffering, and of great pity. Thou sparest when we deserve punishment, And in thy wrath thinkest upon mercy. Spare thy people, good Lord, spare them, And let not thine heritage be brought to confusion. Hear us, O Lord, for thy mercy is great, And after the multitude of thy mercies look upon us; Through the merits and mediation of thy blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE Lord bless us, and keep us; the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and give us peace, now and for evermore. Amen."

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part V a

The Coming of Christendom

Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Appendix

It is no exaggeration to say that the fourth century had (and continues to have) an impact on the church. For three hundred years Jesus words “If they me persecuted me, they will persecute you” had been a feature in the life of the church inside and outside Roman Empire. Yet, as we saw in the previous post, the more the church was persecuted, the more it grew. “The blood of the martyrs,” declared Tertullian, “was the seed of the church”.

The imperial campaign against the church continued in the fourth century. However, by the close of the fourth century Christianity had moved from being an illegal, “destabilising” movement within the empire to the imperially endorsed religion of the state. The paradigm of how the church had related to society and the government for three hundred years suddenly changed. The coming of Christendom, as we now know it, turned the old realities on their head and created a moment of confusion for the Church. Many readers will be familiar with the theological reverberations this caused; the fourth and fifth centuries witnessed intense and often violent theological debates about the nature of Christianity. Who is Jesus, and how does he relate to the Father? We’ll explore these debates much more fully in the post five. In this post, I want to focus on the impact the fourth century had how the church conceived of government and itself. Firstly, let me set the scene.

Background
When Diocletian died in 311AD, the outlook for Christians within the Roman Empire looked grim. As Emperor, Diocletian had instigated a wide spread campaign persecution against the Christians in 303AD, which continued unabated after his abdication in 304AD. What we now know as the Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last imperial persecution of Christians. It was also the widest ranging and the most violent.

It is said that Diocletian was inspired to renew the anti-Christian actions of the third century when, on a visit to the prophet in Didyma to obtain a divine oracle, he was told the presence of Christians in the empire had rendered the god silent. Beginning on 23 February 303, the feast of the Terminalia, for Terminus, the god of boundaries, the program to terminate the Christian presence within the empire began. In a series of edicts, Christians gradually lost their rights: churches and Bibles were destroyed, Christian senators and soldiers lost their rank, former slaves were re-enslaved, and Christians lost the right to properly defend themselves before the courts. Christians were also forced to make sacrifices to the Roman gods; those who refused faced imprisonment, torture and even death. The fourth century writer Eusebius records that the Roman prisons could not handle the volume of Christians being arrested and ordinary criminals had to be released from prison.

Diocletian’s successors continued to wage war on the Church after his abdication, even through six years of civil war. The decisive moment came in 312AD when the Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, leaving Constantine as the sole ruler of the western empire. However, Constantine claimed to have freed Rome from the yoke of tyranny in the name of Christ – his soldiers having fought at Milvian Bridge with standards that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧, formed from the first two Greek letters of the word Christ.

Over the next 25 years of his reign, Constantine not only made a large impact on Roman politics, uniting the empire under his rule; he has played an important and increasing role in the life of the church: he officially ended the persecution of Christians (in the western empire through the Edict of Milan in 313, and in 324 in the eastern empire); launched a large scale campaign to build churches throughout the empire (such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the original St Basilica’s in Rome), moved the capital city to Byzantium (dedicating the city as Constantinople solely to Christ and not the ancient gods of Rome); and organised the first ecumenical council to determine the theology of the church at Nicaea in 325.

With one exception, Constantine’s successors continued these policies; in 380 Christianity was effectively declared the state religion of the empire. In 392, with the structure that had supported it for centuries crumbling around it, pagan worship was banned within the empire. Rome – long the persecutor of the church, was now lead by Emperors who not only endorsed but also sought to actively promote the interests of the church.

How would the Christians respond to these new circumstances?



Images:

Top: Christ Between Peter and Paul, 4th century; Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana. "Christ with the book of the Gospels is seated between Peter and Paul. Below, the Lamb is standing in the centre on a hill, from which flow out the four symbolic rivers of Scripture. To the sides are the most venerated Martyrs, with their names: Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, Tiburtius, all acclaiming the Lamb" (Christian Catacombs of Rome).

Middle: The Battle of Milvian Bridge, by Giulio Romano. From the Vatican City, Apostolic Palace.

Bottom: A coin of Constantine (c.337) showing a depiction, and on the reverse his labarum with the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧ spearing a serpent.

Church and the Word

"The community is confronted and created by the Word of God. It is the communion of the saints because it is the gathering of the faithful [believing]. As such it is the confederation of witnesses, who may and must speak because they believe.

The community does not speak with words alone. It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world; by its characteristic attitude to world problems; and moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the handicapped, weak and needy in the world. It speaks, finally, by the simple fact that it prays for the world.

The community does all this because this is the purpose of its summons [into existence] by the Word of God. It cannot avoid doing these things, since it believes." - Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology

HGP Relfections II

I recently completed a ministry traineeship at Sydney University with the EU Grads Fund and the Sydney University Evangelical Union. Over the next couple of days I'll be posting some of my reflections on the past two years.

Love the Church

"And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church..."

Over dinner at a conference I recently attended I heard a theological college graduand explain his decision to head into full time student ministry in 2012. He said he wanted to be involved in a ministry where he could pastor people, teach the bible and especially see people transformed by the Spirit of Christ and grow in their faith. And as far as he could see, there was no opportunity at all for this to happen in church-based ministry. Hence his move into student ministry.

It was a conversation that made me quite sad. If Ephesians one is right and the church really is the Jesus' body, than the church is something to be loved, and not despised. Jesus is the head, the church is his body, made up of his people, and so you love his church. And I don't just mean your local congregation you meet with on Sunday. I'm talking about the one true holy catholic and apostolic church, the church that God works through to make his wisdom known to the world (Ephesians 3.1-10), and the church that Jesus died for (Ephesians 5).

One of my peculiarities is that I've spent the past five years working parachurch organizations: three years with CMS and two years with the EU Grads Fund/Sydney University Evangelical Union. During my traineeship I've had time to reflect on both organizations and something that has impressed me about both organizations is that they know who they are. They understand that they are not churches, but as parachurch groups they exist to serve the church. Not every parachurch organization remembers this.

For a long time now I've been impressed by how the SUEU and the EUGF have sought to be a blessing to the church. The students in the EU are exhorted and encouraged to not only belong to, but to also thoughtfully serve their local church. The training they receive as students will hopefully equip them to serve not only during their time at uni, but also for the rest of their lives. And vision of the EUGF is to see hundreds and thousands of Sydney Uni graduates flood the church ready to serve wherever they find themselves. It's all about helping the church be the church.

Love the church, because it's Jesus church.

A Sign of God's Purpose

An excerpt from a most excellent sermon Archbishop Rowan Williams gave on Sunday in Harare, Zimbawe. Worth checking out:

"This Eucharist is the sign of God's purpose for all of us; it is a feast in which all are fed with Christ's new life, in which there is no distinction of race, tribe or party. In this community there can be no place for violence or for retaliation: we stand together, sinners in need of grace, proclaiming to the world that there is room at God's table for all people equally. What the Church has to say to the society around it, whether here or in Britain, is not to advance a political programme but to point to the fact of this new creation, this fellowship of justice and joy, this universal feast... The message we want to send from this Eucharistic celebration is that we do not have to live like that – in terror, in bloodshed. God has given us another way. He has opened a door of possibility that no-one can shut. He has announced that he will welcome all to the marriage feast of his Son – and so we see that all, even our bitterest enemies, still have a place in his peace if they will only turn and be saved. Did you hear what St Paul said in today's epistle? 'Fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are noble, right, pure, lovely and honourable.' We need to feed ourselves and most especially to feed our young people with such things, to hold before us that great new possibility opened up by God for our minds to be transformed, to be excited not by the false thrills of violence and bloody conflict, by the overheated language of party conflict, but by the hope of joy and reconciliation." - Rowan Williams

A Rant: The Homogeneous Unit Principle

A rant placed here mainly for my own benefit:

Like attracts like, right? So if you are wanting to reach Transylvanian lumberjacks with the gospel, the most effective way to do it is to start a church for Transylvanian lumberjacks. After all, there are plenty of parachurch organisations that operate on this principle and they seem to have a fruitful ministry in reaching their particular group. So this ministry tactic is naturally transferable to churches?

No! In this instance we can not allow ourselves to be guided by pragmatism. This is a danger we must be on our guard against because it is a denial of the gospel. The church is the place that welcomes everyone: Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, the rich, the socially excluded, even the Transylvanian lumberjack. But the vision of the New Testament is that they are welcomed into God's church together:

"May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, 'Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.'" Romans 15. 5-9

And again:

"This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." Ephesians 3.6

As the church proclaims Jesus, the Holy Spirit brings different types of people together to form the church, God's new humanity (cf. Ephesians 2.11 ff.). Churches modelled on the homogenous unit principle deny this reality. And yet God uses this reality to declare to the world the wisdom of his plan to unite all things - even Jews and Gentiles - under Christ (Eph.3.10). It is through this that God ends hostility and brings peace to his creation.

Churches modeled on the homogenous unit principle reinforce to the world the exclusions and segmentations the world has created. We are in danger of denying the power of God to bring peace to the world.

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part IV

The Unimpressive Church
Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Appendix

The student of ecclesiastical history may often be left with the impression that for three hundred years the story of the church was solely the story of leaders and scholars. The kind of men you’d find being represented in an icon; men like Polycarp and Irenaeus, or Tertullian and Origen. It is easy to tell the story of the leaders of the church. They were the men (for they were mostly men) who took the gospel to new parts of the world, who continued to freshly articulate the significance of Jesus to life and thought, who defended the faith, who taught God’s word, and who would sometimes lose their lives for Jesus’ sake. They were impressive people, and it’s easy to think that by understanding their story you have understood the whole.

Yet that does not give us the full picture. By the third century (200-300AD) there were hundreds of thousands and even millions of Christians spread throughout the Roman world, the Persian empire, in Armenia (the first official Christian state), Arabia, Ethiopia and India. And by focusing on the bishops and scholars can leave us with an all too grand picture of what the early church looked like (particularly when compared to more familiar church history).

The dominant feature of the early church is how utterly unimpressive it was. This might seem strange, given the rapid speed with which Christianity spread around the known world. But as the Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian church: “not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth”. The church was distinctively ordinary. Although there were Christians from all sections of society, a high proportion of Christians came from what we might call a humble background. And this made the church scandalously ordinary, as men AND women from every class and status would welcome one another. When its critics looked at the church, what they saw was the basest kinds of humans sordidly meeting together for their ‘love feasts’ (an early name for the Eucharist). You can feel this scandal in the writing of Celsus, a second century critic of the church who wrote that it is:

“...only foolish and low individuals, and persons devoid of perception, and slaves, and women, and children, of whom the teachers of the divine word wish to make converts”.

The church became contemptuously known for holding slaves and women in high regard. For this it was seen to be unravelling the very fabrics of society. Inside the church slaves could hold positions of leadership, i.e. deacons, presbyters; even outrageously leading their owners if they too were Christian. And in the Roman world as more and more people became to Christian, they abandoned the ancient gods – the very same gods who ensured the peace and prosperity of the empire. This is one reason why we see such a vitriolic reaction against Christians during the reign of Emperor Diocletian at the end of the third and into the fourth century.

Not only was Christianity unimpressive, it was also dangerously subversive to order and security of the world. But who were the early Christians?

It is no understatement to describe Christianity as an urban movement. The church was so heavily represented in the cities of the Mediterranean, that the word for people who lived in rural areas came to be used to describe anyone who was not a Christian. We know it today in English as pagan.

By the third century an increasing number of new Christians came from a non- Jewish background. It was not typically through the mass conversions we often imagine; people became Christian as their family and friends witnessed to them in both word and deed. New believers would be welcomed into the “family of believers” each year at Easter. They would continue to meet together each Sunday to celebrate the Lord’s Day. And excluded to the margins of society and under the threat of death, the church continued to live by its convictions. The second century Epistle to Diognetus described the early Christians in this way:

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, no the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity... But inhabiting the Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives... To sum up all in one word - what the soul is to the body, that are Christians in the world.

As unimpressive as the church was, there was something radically impressive about it as well. According to academics like Rodney Stark and David Bentley Hart, this has to do with the Christian concept of humanity. The church understood itself to be a new humanity. They were a family, the “brethren”, established by Jesus to welcome everyone. So that is what they did. In the words of Hart, the church gave a face to the faceless, welcoming those who technically had no identity in society. Slaves were welcomed and able to participate in the church. Furthermore, the church welcomed and valued women. Throughout the empire, there were a higher proportion of men to women. The affects of female infanticide and abortions that often resulted in the death of the women created this gender imbalance. However, it appears that there was an opposite gender imbalance in the church, with more women than man. The church was the sole community in the empire that condemned these practices and gave women the dignity due to them being created in God’s image.

The church was also known for acting on this conviction outside the Christian community, caring for the poor and sick and the well being of their cities. They became so well know for it that the last “pagan” Emperor Julian, in the fourth century, lamented that:

“These impious Galileans [Christians] not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae [love feasts], they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.”

The church proclaimed the gospel of Jesus in both word and deed. This was particularly seen in two epidemics between 250AD and 350AD that devastated the eastern half of the empire. 10,000’s of people died, and whilst the rich and elite “pagans” fled the cities, it was the Christians who stayed and cared for the sick and dying:

“[During the great epidemic] most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves... Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ... Many, in nursing the curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead... The [pagans] behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled even from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead." - Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria , circa 260AD.

These were the early Christians. They lived out the gospel in their lives and in their actions. And unlike a lot of Christians today, they didn’t have any hang-ups about what proportion the needed to that they in. They just did it; even if it cost them their lives. In the face of terrible persecution (which we haven’t covered in this post), social exclusion, and death, they lived out the gospel, welcoming everyone who claimed allegiance to Jesus. This was the terribly ordinary, unimpressive church. Not many of them were wise; not many of them were powerful. “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Cor 1.27).


For Further Reading:

• David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies, 2009. Winner of the prestigious Michael Ramsay Prize for 2011, Atheist Delusions offers great insight on the early church and the world around it.
• Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 1997.
• Rodney Stark, Cities of God, 2006.
• Henry Chadwick, The Penguin History of the Church: The Early Church, (revised edition), 1993.

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part III

Making Sense of a Hostile World
Intro | Part I | Part II

“Jesus had fulfilled Israel’s vocation to be a light to the nations; now the nations must be brought into allegiance to him. It was time for the nations to join in God’s promises Abraham.”

In the previous post in this series, we briefly sketched out why the Jewish worldview is important for understanding the early church. It made sense of how the early church understood Jesus (the risen promised King of Israel), and why they launched on an ambitious and frantic mission to proclaim his lordship throughout the Roman Empire, and even beyond imperial borders.

This all made sense with a Jewish worldview. But as the end of the first century approached and the first generation of church leaders died, would we see the worldview of the church begin to morph away from the Jewish-ness of the church’s foundation? This is a question commonly poised in church history – and the assumed answer is often a definitive yes. After all there were more and more gentile converts coming into the church; and in 136 AD Roman armies crushed the last great Jewish rebellion against the Empire (the Bar Kokhba revolt AD 132-136), thereby drawing to a close the world of second temple Judaism. The second century church would belong to the gentiles.

Except that I’m not sure that is quite what happened. From the available evidence it seems as though the church’s mission was still focused on both Jews and Gentiles. And in fact large numbers of Jewish converts were still being well into the third century. Furthermore, as the church dealt with several crises during the second century, it did so in a thoroughly Jewish way. Don’t misunderstand me: the church’s worldview was thoroughly shaped on and around Jesus Christ; it was a distinguishably Christian worldview when contrasted to the rest of Judaism. But it was still Jewish: God was the creator of the world. In response to evil he called Abraham and made promises about his descendants (Israel). Jesus was the climax of this story. And it was this story that enabled the church to negotiate an aggressive and often hostile world around them.

As the apostles died, leadership of the church for the next two generations passed to a group that we know as the apostolic fathers. These men were active from the end of the first century through to the around 150AD, and had been taught and served alongside the apostles. We have the writings of the several of the apostolic fathers, such as Clement of Rome (who wrote an epistle to the Corinthian Church around 90AD), Polycarp of Smyrna (who was martyred in155AD) and Ignatius of Antioch (who wrote several letters to churches in Asia and the church leader Polycarp as he travelled from Antioch to Rome to be martyred in 110AD). There are other apostolic fathers such as Papias, who wrote quite extensively but, except for a few fragments that have survived in other works, are now lost to us. And we have some anonymous documents such as the Didache and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Following the apostolic fathers the middle of the second century was dominated by a group of men we know as the apologists such as Tertullian (the first Christian to write extensively in Latin) and Justin Martyr who wrote quite extensively in defence of Christianity against “pagan” elites”, and often write appeals to the emperors requesting an end to persecution. By the end of the century the church is being lead by a diverse range of bishops and leaders i.e. Irenaeus, Melito of Sardis, and Clement of Alexandria (who taught in the church’s first Catechetical school and started to integrate Greek philosophy with Christianity). Throughout the second century Christianity was focused on the urban areas of Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Asia and the surrounding provinces (Turkey), Greece, Italy, and Mesopotamia. The church had also started to grow throughout Carthage/North Africa and Gaul.

Martyrdom and the Gnostics
Although there had been sporadic localised persecution throughout the first century, by 125AD it became Imperial policy to punish Christians. Largely focused on the church’s leadership, the persecution of the second century was still quite sporadic compared to the large scale martyrdom's of the late third and early fourth centuries. Yet the example of second century martyrs was still so powerful for the church in strengthening the resolve of the flock and winning new believers that Tertullian could write:

“The more you mow us down, the more we grow. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

The Christians were prepared to die for their faith. Ignatius of Antioch even wrote ahead to the Roman Church to ask them not to intervene:

“I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you; do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.”

The response by the church to persecution and death made complete sense within a Jewish worldview. The believed that God had been a good world, a world which would, in spite of sin and evil, be restored and freed from these things. The believed that God had power over death, and specifically that they would be given resurrection bodies just like Jesus. God had the power to restore their bodies and free it from sin, even if they were devoured by lions or reduced to ashes. Like the Jewish martyrs in 2 Maccabees 7, the second century martyrs responded to an evil empire by clinging to the promise of resurrection.

What makes this most interesting for the study of early church history is that during the second century Gnosticism arose and began to trouble the church. So around 180AD Irenaeus wrote his famous five volume Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies or On the Detection and Overthrow of Knowledge Falsely So Called) which described and contrasted Gnostic belief against apostolic Christian belief, warning believers of the false teachings. Not a monochrome belief, Gnosticism was “a syncretistic, trans-religious theosophy that drew from Christian, Jewish, Greek, Syrian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Persian sources, often simultaneously” (David B. Hart). In contrast to Christianity, it commonly held that the created matter was a result of a fall within the divine world, the result of a lesser being that God. And whereas Christianity believed that the world belong to Jesus, who would restore the world at the resurrection of the dead, Gnosticism taught a salvation/escape from the world for a select few “spiritual” people.

There has been a movement over the past 100 years to portray the Gnostics as the genuine Christians persecuted by the empire and vilified by the catholic church. And yet surprisingly it is hard to find any evidence for this. Perhaps though it is not all that surprising, as NT Wright explains: "Which Roman emperor would persecute anyone for reading the Gospel of Thomas [since it so closely reflected Greek thinking]?....It should be clear that the talk about a spiritual ‘resurrection’ in the sense used by [the Gnostic writings] could not be anything other than a late, drastic modification of Christian language." It was the radical doctrine of the resurrection that brought the wrath of the Roman Empire down not on Gnosticism, but on Christianity.

Authority
As the life of Jesus and the Apostles faded out of the church’s living memory, it was confronted with a new issue of authority. From around 100AD the Apostolic Fathers Clement and Ignatius began to empahaise the important role of the local bishop as a source of unity and order:

"Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans.

However by the middle of the scond century the church had begun to wrestle with the question of scriptural authority. The Apostles had left the church a collection of writings that bore their authority – gospels, epistles and revelations that were written by the apostles or people closely associated with the apostles. But there was no uniform agreement on what works actually constituted the apostolic witness. The works of Clement and Ignatius reference or allude to almost all the books of the New Testament as we now have it, as well as the Old Testament, but there was no actual list. And not every church had access to this apostolic collection.

What spurred the church into action was the Pontian Bishop Marcion of Sinope (c. 85-160AD), who made his way from Pontus to Rome in 142AD. It was at this point that he caused a massive disturbance in the Roman church, publishing the first Christian Canon. Marcion refused to accept the Old Testament as scripture, arguing that its Jewish-ness was incompatible with the teaching of Jesus. He understood that God the Father of Christ and the God of Israel were different, which lead him to publish a truncated New Testament canon. Marcion’s canon was composed exclusively of just Luke (the Evangelikon) and ten of Paul’s letters (the Apostolikon), both of which were purged of references of Jesus' relationship with Israel.

Marcion was excommunicated from the Roman church in 144AD. The church’s response was to define the canon. The process began with the affirmation of the fourfold gospel canon of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John (the Tetramorph); gospels received from the Apostles or their close associates. The other gospel which emerged later, such as Thomas, differed from the Tetramorph in two important ways. Firstly, they were not Jewish and disdained a connection to Israel. Secondly, they were not gospels; rather than being a narrative of events they were for the most part a collection of sayings. Again the criterion for the epistles was evidence of apostolic association (the letter had to authored by an apostle or shown to have been written by a close colleague – which led to the exclusion of works such as The Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache which had sometimes been considered the equivalent of scripture). The process of clarifying the canon continued during the later half of the second century; the earliest evidence we have of this is a damaged and thus incomplete, bad Latin translation of the Muratorian Canon from the late 200’s:

“The third book of the Gospel is that according to Luke… The fourth… is that of John… the acts of all the apostles… As for the Epistles of Paul… To the Corinthians first, to the Ephesians second, to the Philippians third, to the Colossians fourth, to the Galatians fifth, to the Thessalonians sixth, to the Romans seventh… once more to the Corinthians and to the Thessalonians… one to Philemon, one to Titus, and two to Timothy… to the Laodiceans, [and] another to the Alexandrians, [both] forged in Paul's name to [further] the heresy of Marcion… the epistle of Jude and two of the above-mentioned (or, bearing the name of) John… and [the book of] Wisdom… We receive only the apocalypses of John and Peter, though some of us are not willing that the latter be read in church. But Hermas wrote the Shepherd very recently… And therefore it ought indeed to be read; but it cannot be read publicly to the people in church.”

The Canon was formalised in the third and fourth centuries at various Synods and Ecumenical Councils around the Mediterranean world. Yet what these councils did was to formalise a canon that was already largely agreed upon and in place by 200AD. Marcion would not be the first time that heresy would push the church towards clarity.

Reflections
As we’ve seen, the first and second century churches life and praxis was grounded in the story of Israel and Jesus. 20 Centuries later, is this the case for you and your church?

I always find the writing of the apostolic fathers and second century church to be encouraging and uplifting. Take for example Melito of Sardis homily on the Passover, written around 160AD:

"This is the one who like a lamb was carried off and like a sheep was sacrificed. He redeemed us from slavery to the cosmos as from the land of Egypt and loosed us from slavery to the devil as from the hand of Pharaoh. And he sealed us from our souls with his own Spirit and the lambs of our body with the his own blood. This is the one who covered death with his shame and made a mourner of the devil, just as Moses did Pharaoh. This is the one who struck lawlessness a blow and made injustice childless, as Moses did Egypt. This is the one who rescued us from slavery into liberty, from darkness into light, from death into life, from a tyranny into an eternal kingdom (and made us a new priesthood and a peculiar, eternal people)."

I can think of nothing better than to recommend that you acquaint with our brothers and sisters from this time by reading what they wrote themselves. Most of their writings are available on line, and I’ll mention them under the recommend reading below.

Recommend Reading

• Early Christian Writings, translated by Maxwell Stamforth, edited Betty Radice, Penguin Books, 1968.
• The Christological Controversy, translated and edited by Richard A. Norris, Fortress Press, 1980.
• Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham, Eerdmans, 2008.
• Judas and the Gospel of Jesus, NT Wright, SPCK, 2006.
• The Early Church – Revised Edition, Henry Chadwick, Penguin Books, 1993.