Parish Family Tree

Long term readers of hebel will know of a slow, on going project to map the parishes of the Sydney Diocese.


View Sydney Diocese Parish Boundaries in a larger map

Partly this comes out of an appreciation of the Anglican parochial missiology. But it also comes from the present inaccessibility of parish maps. Well, related to this project has been an interest in the history of the formation of parishes in Sydney. Thanks largely to pre-existing family trees at St Philip's Church Hill and St Peter's St Peters, I've begun to compile a family tree of Sydney Anglican parishes. You might like to check it out below (click to expand):

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.

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.

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: Appendix

Sorry it's been a while since there was any activity on this blog. I was at the EU's Annual Conference, and then Alison and I were on holidays down the south coast. The next post in the church history series: 20 Centuries in 20 Posts will be posted later this week. But until then you might like to check out this video that was made for annual conference by Ben Duffin; Church History in Five Minutes:

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.
  

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part II

Coming to Terms With Jesus
Intro | Part I

How do you explain the rapid spread of Christianity? Within the world of academia, litres of ink are spent trying to explain, understand and justify this phenomenon. In articulating the enormity of what took place, Tom Wright writes:

“The single most striking thing about early Christianity is the speed of its growth. In A.D. 25 there is no such thing as Christianity; merely a young hermit in the Judean wilderness, and his somewhat younger cousin who dreams dreams and sees visions. By A.D. 125 the Roman emperor has established an official policy in relation to the punishment of Christians…”

Christianity exploded into the Greco-Roman world. What had started in Jerusalem had, within 100 years spread as far as southern France, Ethiopia and possibly even India. This is quite remarkable, given what we said about Jesus in the previous post. Jesus saw himself as the pinnacle of God and Israel’s story, limiting his ministry almost exclusively to Israel. What he offered, and what he embodied, was a new way forward for Israel. So how did we end up with the church? Although the church’s praxis in 125AD bore some continuity with Israel, the church’s shape and life was also looked quite different from Israel.

Various reasons have been suggested to explain this. For instance, was this the work of the Apostle Paul, distilling Jesus’ call to Israel into a more palatable message for non-Jews? Or perhaps the fourth century ‘pagan’ Roman Emperor Julian was right when he argued the church grew because of their love and hospitality:

“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.”

There’s some truth in this, and we’ll explore Julian’s raison d’être for the growth of the church more in a future post. However, I want to suggest that the answer lies in a major shift in the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. They came from a Jewish background, and held a worldview consistent with first century Judaism. Yet for some reason their worldview had totally changed. I want to suggest that the resurrection of Jesus was a complete shift in the first century Jewish worldview.

That the early Christians believed in the resurrection is unsurprising – it was part of the standard Jewish worldview. However, what stood at the periphery of the Jewish worldview was now front and centre of the Christian hope. The conviction of the early church was that the resurrection had happened, not at the end of history as the Jewish worldview believed, but now in the middle of history. The resurrection of Jesus changed everything. We can trace what this meant for the early church in Paul’s letter to the Roman church (see Romans 1.1-6). The resurrection of Jesus declared that he was the Son of God, the Messiah; the true descendant of David and hence Israel’s true King.

The resurrection showed that Jesus was Israel-in-person, Israel’s representative, the one in whom Israel’s destiny had reached its climax. He was Israel’s King – raised from the dead. And if he was Israel’s King, then the Psalms and the prophets insisted he was also the world’s true Lord:

“Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” Romans 1.5-6

This is why Christianity developed new practices and symbols apart from Judaism. The early Christians understood that Israel’s story had come to fruition in Jesus. The old symbols of God’s people would have to find new meaning in him. So the church started meeting on Sunday’s to celebrate his resurrection. They broke bread and drank wine together to commemorate his death and remind each other that they belonged together in him. The prayed and sang to him, because the story of Israel and the world was now focused around Jesus. And they were now on a mission. 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.

“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.” Romans 15.8-9

This raised questions about the continuing connection between the church and Israel, and the place of the law and Israel’s symbols in the life of the church. The early Christians only started to answer this question as they came to terms with who Jesus is and what that means for the world. The church grew first and fore mostly because they understood themselves to be on mission. Jesus has been raised, and he is the King, of both Jews and Gentiles.

________
I feel that it’s all too easy for us to underestimate how big an issue this was for the early church. Yet this was the major issue in the first century church, that the gentiles could be “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus”. We do ourselves a disservice when we screen this issue out of our reading of the New Testament.

My other reflection on this post is that mission and theology need to be more closely held together than is often case today. From what I’ve seen, the two ‘disciplines’ are often at arm’s length of each other. Yet, in one sense, it was because of theological reflection that the early church launched into mission. I wonder what would happen if our missionaries, church planters, evangelists etc. spent more time talking to theologians, and vice versa because the theological reflection in Acts often happened after the Holy Spirit took the initiative to bring gentiles to Christ.

For Further Reading:

• NT Wright: The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003. RSG is a tour de force. Read this if you want to understand more fully how the resurrection of Jesus changed the worldview of the Apostles and the early church. If 800+ pages isn't your cup of tea, try Wright's Surprised by Hope, 2008.
  
• James Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 2003 and Beginning from Jerusalem, 2008. I've only just managed to look through these. Massive and magnificent!
• Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, 1997. Stark isn't a historian by training, and is a little bit sketchy when he moves away from history. Nevertheless, this is a important book. Helpful to have a sociologist's perspective.
  

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part I

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part I: The Genesis of Church History

Church history matters because the Church matters. It was with such a grandiose statement that I launched the ambitious 20 centuries in 20 posts project. History has always played an important role in the Christian story. From the writers of the Gospel narratives and Acts, through Eusebius and Bede down to today, reflecting on and understanding the past has played an important role in Christianity. And this is because of a distinctly Christian understanding of the past. Church history matters because history itself matters. Central to the Christian worldview is not a timeless, sapiential philosophy; what is central is the conviction that God acts and has made himself known in our space/time universe. And God has ultimately does this in Jesus Christ.

The Christian story begins starts with the in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This is where most church histories will start their narrative. Yet there is something wrong about this, both historically and theologically. Jesus did not just walk in out of nowhere and start proclaiming the Kingdom of God (Mark 1.1-15); he had a context, and saw himself as part of the long story of God’s dealings with Israel. I think that liberal theologian Marcus Borg is on to something when he says:

“We commonly think of Jesus as the founder of Christianity. But strictly speaking, this is not historically true. Instead, his concern was the renewal of Israel.” - Marcus Borg, Jesus: A New Vision, p. 125

To do church history well, I suggest that we need to integrate Israel into our narrative, as some historians have started to do. When we do this, it helps us as Christians to read the Old Testament and what the New Testament says about God’s covenant. It helps you understand the first 200 years of Christianity – which was largely a Jewish movement for the first two centuries of its existence – and in particular the context and issues the apostles write about in the New Testament. But most importantly, grounding Christian history in Israel’s history helps we make sense of Jesus, and what he was doing. He saw himself as the climax of a story that involved Adam and Eve, Abraham and the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, David/Solomon and the kings down to Zedekiah, and the aftermath of exile. It’s by understanding God’s history with Israel and by plotting Jesus on the map of his own particular context – Second Temple Judaism – that we can understand how Jesus interpreted his mission. Briefly, this is what his mission looked like:

1. Jesus focused exclusively on Israel: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” Matt 15.24, and “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" Matt 10.5. Except for three exceptions, Jesus ministered only to Israelites, because his mission was to restore the lost in Israel and renew the nation.


2. Jesus announced the nearness of the kingdom: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the gospel!” Mark 1.15. The Kingdom of God is where God's climatic authority is known and done on earth as in heaven (see Isaiah 40).


3. Jesus performed acts of power: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you" Matt 12.28. Jesus enforced the Kingdom through his miracles. He taught that the Roman occupiers weren't Israel’s real enemy, but the spiritual forces that had enslaved the nation in darkness and sin (see Mark 3.23-28).


4. Jesus called and sent twelve: “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that we may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel" Luke 22.28-30. Jesus gathers twelve Apostles, a parallel of the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve are connected to Jesus, and through him the renewal of Israel that they longed for would happen.


5. Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts: "And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, 'Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?' And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2.16-17). Jesus welcomed the lost of Israel, those generally despised and referred to as "sinners", whilst exposing the hypocrisy of Israel’s leaders.


6. Jesus announced God's grace (especially for the destitute): “Blessed are we who are poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God." (Luke 6.20).


7. Jesus taught a new way of living as God's people: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” Luke 6.35-36).
   

Jesus saw himself as the pinnacle of God and Israel’s story. So what he offered, and what he embodied, was a new way forward for Israel; a profound movement of renewal of Israel in the light of the coming climax of God's dealing with his people. We need to understand this to understand Jesus. Without Israel there is no Jesus.


Church history matters only because history matters. At the heart of Christianity is history: that God promised a Middle Eastern shepherd that through him his family and indeed the whole world would be blessed. At the heart of Christianity is an event that is interpreted as fulfilling that promise: that Jesus, the Jewish King, was killed for the sins the people; that he was raised from the dead, and now reigns as the Lord over all, the first-born of the new creation. This is church history; this is the gospel.


For Further Reading:

• Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, 2009. MacCulloch is an eminent church historian, and his epic book/BBC series helpfully locates the church's history in Israel's history.
  
• NT Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 1996. Wright offers rigorous scholarship, reconstructing the worldview of Second Temple Judaism, making sense of Jesus' aims and self-understanding within that world. A great piece of historical scholarship. Simply put, this book changed my life.
  

New Series: 20 Centuries in 20 Posts

An Introduction
We are on the cusp of three third millennia since Jesus Christ walked the face of this earth. Time has marched on, and what once was has been separated from us by the years and centuries that have past.

Yet the past continues to beckon us. The Christian claim is that in this particular person the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. We believe that through his life, death and resurrection we can know God. Although separated by time and space, the past calls us because to this one man every tongue will confess that he is Lord.

We also believe that God is at work now in the community that arose in response to him. We believe that the church is the new humanity in embryo, the people of the ascended and reigning Christ Jesus.

A central part of the Christian confession has been the “catholic and apostolic church.” Yet from my own experience we struggle with the church. For many in the Western tradition, the church is a tool, a resource. Rather than being the body of Christ, the bulwark of truth, the family of faith, the church is like a loose collection of Jesus’ Facebook friends. So it comes as no surprise that within my own context that we also struggle in being able to tell the story of the church. A large number of Church history books are published every year – most of them focused on retelling particular segments from the church’s life. But I suggest that we find it difficult in being able to coherently (and interestingly) tell the 20 centuries of church history.

Church history matters because the church matters. So in the coming weeks hebel will attempt to grasp the bull by the horns and tell 20 centuries of church history in 20 posts. Church history is far more diverse and complex than what I’ll be able to do. 20 Centuries in 20 Posts is not an attempt to be the definitive guide to church history; instead I intend it as a means to provoke further study and reflection.

What I aim to do in 20 Centuries in 20 Posts is to tell the narrative of the church’s life in a way that takes seriously our belief in the “catholic and apostolic church”. So much church history that is published is western in focus; it assumes the move from Palestine to the Vatican and St Paul’s was a natural historical progression. 20 Centuries in 20 Posts will attempt to tell the church’s story giving due regards to the major branches of the church: Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant/Reformed. I want to tell history that is coherent as well as accessible and interesting. I will assume no prior knowledge, but I will leave you to do further research for yourself. And I want to be generous and gracious in my interactions with the past, knowing that it’s not historical facts and figures I’m dealing with but brothers and sisters in the Lord.

According to Rowan Williams the purpose of historical study is to question and also be questioned by the past.

“A central aspect of where the Christian begins, the sense of identity that is there at the start of any storytelling enterprise, is the belief that the modern believer is involved with and in a community of believers extended in time and space, whose relation to each other is significantly more than just one of vague geographical connection and temporal succession. In theological shorthand, the modern believer sees herself of himself as a member of the Body of Christ.” - Rowan Williams, Why Study the Past?

As we shall see, the Christian past belongs to the Christian present.

History is Precedent and Permission

"...[L]acking curiosity and the habit of study and any general grasp of history, we have entered a period of nostalgia and reaction. We want the past back, though we have no idea what it was. Things do not go so well for us as they once did. We feel we have lost our way. Most of us know that religion was once very important to our national life, and believe, whether we ourselves are religious or not, that we were much the better for its influence. Many of us know that Calvinism was a very important tradition among us. Yet all we know about John Calvin was that he was an eighteenth-century Scotsman, a prude and obscurantist with a buckle on his hat, possibly a burner of witches, certainly the very spirit of capitalism. Our ignorant parody of history affirms our ignorant parody of religious or 'traditional' values. This matters, because history is precedent and permission, and in this important instance, as in many others, we have lost plain accuracy, not to speak of complexity, substance, and human inflection. We want to return to the past, and we have made our past a demonology and not a human narrative." - Marilynne Robinson, Marguerite de Navarre, The Death of Adam, p. 206.

NT Historicity Readings

Here are the books I'm recommending in my AnCon seminar (Ancon, if you're interested, currently has over 630 registrations). Are there books any that you would add, or subtract?

Short and easy to give away
Andrew Errington, Can We Trust What the Gospels say about Jesus? Matthias Media, Sydney, 2009. Andrew has a MA in early Christian and Jewish Studies and is a former EU president.

Murray Smith, Jesus: All About Life, The Bible Society, Sydney, 2009. Murray is currently completing a PhD on Jesus and Early Christianity. He’s also a former EU president. Reviewed here and here.


If you want to know more
Paul Barnett, Is the New Testament History?, revised edition, Aquila Press, Sydney, 2003.

John Dickson, The Christ Files: How historians know what they know about Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2006.

John Dickson, Jesus: A Short Life, Lion Books, Oxford, 2008.

John Dickson, A Spectator’s Guide to Jesus, Blue Bottle Books, Sydney, 2005.

John Dickson, Life of Jesus course guidebook, Centre for Public Christianity, Sydney, 2009.

Audio
John Dickson, Jesus: Reconsider? SUEU re:Jesus festival 2008, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

Chris Forbers, Does the Historical Jesus Have a Leg to Stand On? SUEU Think Weeks 2006, www.sueu.org.au/resources/eu_media/, accessed 17 June 2010.

More serious books
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: the Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, Erdmans, Grand Rapids, 2008.

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, second edition, IVP, Leicester, 2008.

Doubting Jesus

"[G]iven that there are no contemporary references to Jesus while he was supposedly alive, we may even doubt his existence. There is not one mention of him in the many missives that passed from Palestine to Rome." Chris Gaffney (the Secretary of the Victorian Labor College), The Australian Rationalist (Spring, 2005).

As John Dickson has pointed out, if Gaffney has discovered some missives that passed between Palestine and Rome, there are plenty of historian who would love to see them. Because there has been none found so far.

"Although Jesus probably existed, reputable biblical scholars do not in general regard the New Testament (and obviously not the Old Testament) as a reliable record of what actually happened in history, and I shall not consider the Bible further as evidence for any kind of deity." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

Frustratingly, Dawkins doesn't reference any reputable biblical scholars. He does rely on G.A. Wells, who is probably the most famed academic to deny the existence of Jesus. And yet Wells had no background in history, let alone the history of Jesus. He is a professor in German!

Check it out

This is old news by now, but Ryan Smartt has starteda blog. As a high school Christian Studies teacher, the blog offers Ryan's relfections he shares Jesus in with his students. Right now Ryan is sneezing posts out for breakfast, so it's worth checking out his blog here: ryansmartt.wordpress.com.

Nat Swann has started blogging about her PhD over at nswann.wordpress.com.

The Evangelical History Association has a website. The EHA is really moving forward under the presidency of Meredith Lake, especially with the Divining the Past conference scheduled for July (which I've mentioned before here).

And for something different, I enjoy following the 52 suburbs blog, least of all for the photography: www.52suburbs.com.

Divining the Past: Dialogues between Christianity and history

A Call for Papers

Over at Faith and Place Meredith has launched a conference hosted by the Evangelical History Association:

"Divining the Past is a conference dedicated to the exploration of relationships between Christianity and History. How has the Christian tradition informed the theory and practice of history? How important is history to the belief and expression of Christianity? And how have Christian people, groups, movements, ideas and experiences been significant in past centuries? The conference aims to bring together a variety of perspectives on these questions. It is open to scholars associated with theological colleges as well as universities. Students doing original research in history are especially encouraged to participate.

The EHA invites proposals for papers on any aspect of the relationship between Christianity and History. We particularly welcome papers with an historiographical or theoretical focus, or that engage with the following topics:

• Religion and politics
• The church in society
• Evangelicalism in Australia
• Christianity in ancient history
• Christianity and universities
  

The program will feature a panel on the theoretical and methodological links between Christianity and the discipline of history.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Dr Meredith Lake - meredithelake[at]gmail[dot]com - by 31 March 2010."