By Arthur J. Bellinzoni Professor of Religion, Wells College
 

Christianity had its origins in Roman Palestine as an insignificant sect within Judaism. But the nascent movement spread quickly into the 1st century Greco-Roman world, where it became a very different religion. To understand Christianity's origins and growth, the serious student of religion needs to understand the historical, cultural, and religious contexts in which Jesus lived and into which the new religion was born and eventually spread, the one Jewish, the other Greco-Roman or Hellenistic. Much of that is beyond the scope of this paper, but I do hope to introduce you to some of the forces and issues that shaped Christianity in the first three centuries of its development.

The earliest church was essentially an eschatological community - that is, a community that was living as if the end of history was just around the corner. The first Christians believed that they were living in the last days of the history of the world, that Jesus would return within their lifetimes to inaugurate the Age to Come, and that they needed to live their lives in anticipation of that immanent event, when they would all face the final judgment of God.

With the delay of Jesus' second coming, however, the church quickly became an ecclesiastical community with all of the trappings of a religion that was prepared to endure indefinitely in the world. But before tracing some of those developments, let us look briefly at the man who stands at the center of Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth.

In spite of what people may think, we actually know very little about Jesus. Our principal sources for his life and ministry are the four gospels of the canonical New Testament, but they are by no means biographies (as we understand that genre) or impartial witnesses to his life and ministry. They are rather confessional literature that tells us as much about the early communities that generated them as they do about Jesus himself. The gospels are early Christian propaganda in the literal meaning of that word: they were written to propagate the faith and the message of the church.

Tradition notwithstanding, it appears that Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph (the oldest of a least 7 children), that he was born in Nazareth, that he was a disciple or follower of John the Baptist and submitted to John's baptism, and that he began his ministry only after the arrest of John. Like John before him, Jesus proclaimed the immanent coming of the New Age, the Reign of God, which would be ushered in with the arrival of a supernatural angelic figure whom Jesus and many of his Jewish contemporaries called the Son of Man.

Jesus called upon his followers to prepare for that cataclysmic event by following a radical ethic that challenged the contemporary Jewish establishment, namely to live their lives as if they were already living under God's Rule. He apparently performed exorcisms and definitely associated with the outcasts of society (the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised, the lowly, the outcasts, those who were ritually unclean - such as lepers, and yes, even women), for to them belonged the inheritance of God's Rule.

Jesus challenged and even confronted the religious establishment both in his native Galilee and later in the temple in Jerusalem where he overturned the tables of the money-changers and told the Sadducees and priests that they had turned God's house into a den of thieves. For this the Jewish authorities probably conspired to bring him to his end by presenting him to the Roman governor as a political insurrectionist, a threat to Roman rule. As such, he was crucified. And here ends the story. The Jews and the Romans had succeeded in bringing an end to this deviant itinerant prophet. Or did they? The earliest church claimed not, but let's look at what the very earliest church actually said.

I want to examine in some detail two New Testament passages that seem to reflect the earliest church's proclamation about what happened to Jesus following his death.

The first of these is Acts 2:29-36:

"Brothers, no one can deny that the patriarch David himself is dead and buried; his tomb is still with us. But since he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn him an oath to make one of his descendants succeed him on the throne, what he foresaw and spoke about was the resurrection of the Christ: he is the one who was not abandoned to Hades, and whose body did not experience curruption. God raised this man Jesus to life, and all of us are witnesses to that. Now raised to the heights by God's right hand, he has received from the Father the holy Spirit, who was promised, and what you see and hear is the outpouring of that Spirit. For David himself never went up to heaven; and yet these are his words:

For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ."

This passage contains quotations from or allusions to Old Testament references in 2 Samuel 7; Ezekiel 36; Psalm 16; Psalm 110; Psalm 118; and Psalm 132. In identifying these references and allusions to the Old Testament, the early church's only scriptures, I am suggesting that this early confession of faith was built on what the early church regarded as proof texts from its scriptures, the Jewish Bible, or what Christians have come to call the Old Testament. The "events" described in the text of Acts are not really events at all. They are rather a confession of faith based on a reading of scriptures and leading up to the final line: "The whole House of Israel can be certain that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ." The conclusion of this argument from scriptures is that it is by his exaltation to God's right hand that Jesus has been vindicated and has been constituted the "Lord" of whom Psalm 110 speaks and the "Christ" (or Messiah) to whom Psalm 16 refers. The resurrection is not an "event" so much as it is the church's proclamation, conviction, or confession that God has reversed Jesus' execution and has vindicated him by exalting him to a position of honor and power at his right hand as Lord and Messiah. The early church apparently believed that this exalted Christ would then be the one who would return in the very near future as the Son of Man to inaugurate the Age to Come.

Let us look at one more such early confession of faith, this time in the opening words of Paul's Letter to the Romans:

"From Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus who has been called to be an apostle, and specially chosen to preach the Good News that God promised long ago through his prophets in the scriptures. This news is about the Son of God who, according to the human nature he took, was a descendant of David: it is about Jesus Christ our Lord who, in the order of the spirit, the spirit of holiness that was in him, was proclaimed Son of God in all his power through his resurrection from the dead."

What Paul states quite clearly is that because God raised Jesus to life, Christ has been established in glory as kyrios (as Lord), deserving, by virtue of his messianic work, the title "Son of God."

I present these two passages in detail because, scholars maintain, they reflect the most primitive period of the church's confession of faith that Jesus was made messiah and was proclaimed Son of God following his death as a reversal of what appeared to be the victory of evil over good. But, the texts say, God had the last word, not the Jews and not the Romans. God vindicated Jesus by exalting him to a position of power and honor from whence he would return in the final day in glory as the supernatural angelic Son of Man, the agent of God's final judgment who would inaugurate the Reign of God.

If my reading of the evidence is correct, then in its earliest period Christianity was a Jewish sect oriented to the future coming of the Messiah or, more precisely, the Son of Man, who would be none other than Jesus of Nazareth himself, the one whom God had exalted to his right hand by virtue of total obedience to God in the course of his life and ministry. This second coming of Christ would bring history as we know it to a close and would inaugurate the New Age, the New Creation, the Age to Come, the Kingdom of God (or more accurately the Reign of God) - all designations for this future time beyond time.

This earliest community of believers had Peter as its first leader, perhaps because he was the first to believe that God had raised Jesus and made him Messiah and Lord. The group met in the Jerusalem temple, observed Jewish customs, shared their resources, and was opposed by the Jerusalem priesthood. They also seem to have met in one another's houses to share in the breaking of bread, through which they participated symbolically in the crucifixion and exaltation of their Lord.

Very early in Jerusalem there arose another group whose language and outlook was more Greek than Hebrew, more Hellenistic than Jewish. The earliest members of this group were Stephen (who was stoned by the Jews), Philip (an associate of Stephen), Simon the magician, a nameless Ethiopian government official, Paul, and Cornelius (who was the first Gentile convert). This group had a more universal outlook than the group that had formed around Peter's leadership - a view beyond Judaism. They advocated a Christianity independent of the mother religion, not just as a sect within Judaism. They maintained that there was no need for followers of Jesus to observe the Jewish Torah (or law), and they soon found themselves in disagreement with the Jewish Christians over issues such as observance of the Jewish dietary laws and the requirement of male circumcision.

It was in Syria, in the city of Antioch, that followers of what had often been called "the Way," were first called "Christians" (or "Christers"). Paul and a traveling companion Barnabas were commissioned by the church at Antioch to undertake a journey to spread the nascent religion to Asia Minor (current western Turkey). Upon their return from that journey, they found a group of Jewish Christians insisting that Gentile converts be circumcised. Paul's bitterness and anger over this expectation are clearly presented from his perspective in his Letter to the Galatians. There he blatantly challenges the authority of the so-called "pillars of the church," Peter, James, and John, and he states clearly in Galatians 2 that when Peter came to Antioch he "opposed him to his face, since he was manifestly in the wrong." Antioch raised these issues with Jerusalem and sent Paul and Barnabas to a council in Jerusalem in about the year 50.

A compromise was reached in Jerusalem. Gentile Christians must avoid sexual immorality and obey three of the dietary regulations: avoid meat offered to idols, blood, and strangled things. Circumcision was not included among the requirements. The parties agreed that Peter would preach to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles. It appears that neither party lived up to the agreement. Paul went to the Gentiles and preached a gospel free of observance of Torah. And emissaries from Jerusalem followed him to many of the cities in which he preached to tell the churches Paul had established that he was preaching a false gospel, devoid of the requirements of circumcision and the observance of Torah.

I report these events in some detail to indicate that diversity was part of the Christian community virtually from the very beginning, that the matter of leadership was not clearly established even in this very early period, perhaps especially in this earliest period. It was never Jesus' intention to establish a new religion, and there were no provisions for leadership within the community of believers following the death of the master.

Paul, who never knew Jesus, claimed to be an apostle of no less stature and authority than those leaders who had been with Jesus during his lifetime. He writes in the opening words of his Letter to the Galatians: "From Paul to the churches of Galatia, and from all the brothers who are here with me, an apostle who does not owe his authority to men or his appointment to any human being but who has been appointed by Jesus Christ and by God his Father who raised Jesus from the dead."

The admission of Gentiles was clearly a matter of controversy to Jewish Christians; however, that very mission to the Gentiles was a command that was clear to Paul in spite of the Jerusalem church, whose leaders included Peter, the first of Jesus' disciples, and Jesus' own brother James.

These quarrelsome and often divisive issues take us through the earliest period in the history of the church, what we call apostolic Christianity, the period from Jesus death in about 30 to the death of the first generation of leadership in about 70. The next period from about 70 to 185, the period of post-apostolic Christianity, is a period of increasing diversity. This period was inaugurated by three factors worth noting: 

1. The fall of Judea and Jerusalem to the Romans and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70.
2. The spread of Christianity to North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, Italy, and Gaul. The differences in cultures and religious situations in these areas of the Roman Empire resulted in greater variety and diversity within Christianity. As the religion spread, it developed and evolved in a variety of different ways: grounded in traditions of the past, but nurtured and developed in new and challenging ways in each new part of the empire to which it spread. and
3. The year 70 marks the transition from the first to the second generation of Christians. Most of the leaders from the first generation had died, and new leaders were emerging.

1. Late Pauline Christianity (the New Testament canonical books of Ephesians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, and Titus). Late Pauline Christianity is characterized by a decreased interest in eschatology (the "end" had, after all, not arrived on schedule), a church gearing up for continued existence in the world, resistance to forms of Christian thought that seemed deviant, an emphasis on order and structure within the community, and the emergence of a monarchical episcopate (the rise of the authority of the bishop).
2. Late Jewish Christianity (the New Testament canonical Letter of James; and the apocryphal Gospel of the Ebionites, Gospel of the Hebrews, Gospel of the Nazoreans, Gospel of the Elkesaites; and the 3rd and 4th century Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Recognitions of Clement). Late Jewish Christianity traced its origins to Peter, James, and John. James, the brother of the Jesus, was regarded as the first leader of Jewish Christianity. The Letter of James attacks the separation of faith and works (in clear and calculated antithesis to Paul). In the apocryphal writings cited, Christ is regarded as an archangel. Some groups were vegetarian. They were all devout monotheists, revered the Jewish Scripture, practiced male circumcision, and entertained a deep hostility toward Paul. Jesus was considered a prophet like Moses, purely human. They advocated the centrality of the Jewish Torah and claimed continuity with the earliest Christian community (a claim that should probably be taken very seriously).
3. Johannine Christianity (the canonical New Testament Gospel of John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Letters of John). Johannine Christianity is clearly more interested in the supernatural nature of Christ than in the historical Jesus. Christ is an eternally divine being, present with God at creation, the incarnation of a divine being. Sacrament is a means of participation in the deity (as in the Hellenistic mystery religions). The Johannine authors de-emphasized the historical, fleshly, and earthly Jesus. In short, there is little regard for the historical Jesus in the Johannine literature.
4. Gnostic Christianity (2nd century church leaders Valentinus, Ptolemy, Basilides; the apocryphal Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Thomas). In Gnostic Christianity salvation comes by way of a messenger from the divine region who comes to bring knowledge (gnosis) to human beings. After death the Gnostic, having received gnosis and freed from the mortal material body, begins the journey to be united with God (that gnosis consists of soma sema, i.e. the body is the prison of the spirit] and must be released from the body through denial, asceticism, and right thought). Christ was not composed of soul and body, not born in human fashion, and he did not die. He was a supernatural being who only appeared to be human; his humanity was an illusion.
5. Marcionite Christianity (the mid-second century writings of Marcion). Marcion sought to establish a Christianity independent from Judaism and the Jewish scriptures. He claimed that there were two gods: the evil God of the Jewish scriptures and Judaism, and the good God of Christianity, who sent his Son to redeem the world. Marcion published the first canon of the New Testament: consisting of the Gospel of Luke (expurgated of all references to the OT) and the letters of Paul. As we can see, 2nd century Christianity was characterized more by its diversity more than by its unity. Each movement had its own beliefs, practices, leaders, and writings.

At the end of the 2nd century Irenaeus was the most famous author of anti-heretical literature and is in many ways the father of Early Catholic Christianity. In his writing Against All Heresies, Irenaeus made three important points:

1. The church is guided by the rule of faith, which to him meant subscription to a credal statement that he claimed was taught in all churches: "Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in one Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God."
2. The churches were established by apostles who chose their successors in an unbroken succession of bishops. Irenaeus listed the bishops in the church at Rome in order of succession from Linus to Eleutherus - evidence of the claim of apostolic succession. And
3. The church has apostolic writings: the New Testament which together with the Old Testament and the Old Testament Apocrypha constitute the canon of sacred scriptures. This claim was clearly directed at Marcion and the Marcionites, who rejected the Jewish scriptures and who were perceived as a major threat at the end of the 2nd century. These collective actions effectively reached out to include late Pauline Christianity and Johannine Christianity. Late Jewish Christianity was excluded (except for the Letter of James), and so too were Gnostic Christianity and Marcionite Christianity, which were growing quickly at the end of the second century and which posed a serious threat and challenged to the emerging orthodoxy.

1. The perceived delay of Jesus' return. The earliest eschatological expectation of the church was not realized, hence the church came to emphasize increasingly the immortality of individual Christians and to de-emphasize the corporate resurrection on the last day.
2. The very fact of diversity within the church was suppressed. When two or more competing claims are made in the name of one religious system, mutual rejection is more likely to result than mutual acceptance. Early Catholic Christianity intended to create a united church. It did so by attempting to identify the heart of Christianity and by proclaiming the core of the doctrine in opposition to the diverse claims of competing groups.
3. The threat from outside. The so-called early apologists, who attempted to answer the challenge of Roman authority, knew that they had to produce an image of Christianity that was acceptable to Roman government officials. Persecution and oppression taught the church that it needed a visible unity, for it was recognized that a divided church could not long stand.

1. The development of a creed as the test of Christian orthodoxy. Early Catholic Christianity was increasingly more Christocentric than theocentric. The focus was more on belief in Christ as God's son than on God himself. Christianity had effectively changed the religion of Jesus into a religion about Jesus. Following the conversion of the 4th century Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity, the emperor called the church into Council at Nicaea in 325 to provide the definitive credal definition of the relationship of the Son to the Father. The result was the Nicene creed, still recited in most mainstream Christian churches today and regarded by many as the test of Christian orthodoxy or correct teaching. Nicaea effectively reduced Christianity to an "orthodoxy," a right teaching about the nature of the Godhead. Nothing could be further from the teaching of Jesus.
2. Bishops and apostolic succession defined authority in the church. Once again the church deviated significantly from the teaching of Jesus, who challenged the authorities of the family structure and religious systems. Jesus advocated an inclusive ministry that embraced the downtrodden, outcasts, and yes, even women. Christianity was never meant to be a majority religion, an establishment religion. When it did become the official religion of the Roman Empire, it lost its soul much of the essence of Jesus' message. The earliest church accepted women and slaves into positions of leadership (as had Jesus), but by 125 the church had reverted to the old order of a male hierarchy that advocated the subordinate status of women and slaves. Paul said in about 50 in his Letter to the Galatians, "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free." But the Deutero-Pauline letters a generation later already demanded the submission of women to their husbands and provided no role for them in the organization and leadership of the church.
3. The establishment of the canon of sacred scriptures afforded the church a distinctive body of authoritative writings. The Bible of the earliest Christian communities was the Hebrew Bible, although that was quickly modified by the words of Jesus that were either remembered or that were otherwise provided by early itinerant preachers and prophets, who sometimes spoke their own authoritative words under the presumed influence of the power of the risen Christ or the holy Spirit. By the 3rd century the church had two foundations of authority, the male hierarchy in the presence of the bishops and the writings of the New Testament. As an aside, the authoritarianism of 20th century Biblical fundamentalism is clear evidence of the danger and limitations of a religion that is centered narrowly on the book. Biblical fundamentalism is, in my opinion, still one more idolatry embraced by an increasing number of Christians. It is what I call bibliolatry or the worship of the Bible. Nothing could be further removed from the teaching of Jesus. It is Pharisaic religion all over again, but this time the religion is Christocentric. How ironic it is that so many Christians have reduced Christianity to the kind of religion that Jesus so vigorously challenged! Pharisaic Christianity is no more tenable than was Pharisaic Judaism.

Let me summarize my conclusions:

Following Jesus crucifixion, the earliest community of believers claimed that God had raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to his right hand in power and glory. This message spread quickly through much of the Mediterranean world but was formulated differently in different Christian communities (Jerusalem, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Rome). In various regions of the ancient Roman world, Christians expressed their beliefs differently, wrote and preserved different books as authoritative, organized and structured their communities and leadership differently, and often disagreed or even competed with churches in other areas. Various "trajectories" or tendencies in early Christianity included: Jewish Christianity, Pauline Christianity, Johannine Christianity, Marcionite Christianity, and Gnostic Christianity.

By the second century there was already a move to bring unity and order to the church by eliminating or suppressing some of these competing Christian movements. Out of this development grew an elaborate church order and hierarchy, a canon of sacred scriptures (the New Testament), and creeds or confessions of faith that defined the orthodox (or correct) teaching as opposed to heretical (or schismatic) teachings of the church.

The church was moving consciously to become one holy, catholic, and apostolic church. An emerging male hierarchy claimed apostolic authority and suppressed diversity to achieve unity - a unity that meant orthodoxy, a public confession of the orthodox (or correct) formulas that defined the natures of the Godhead: God the Father, Jesus Christ his Son, and the holy Spirit. Along the way, however, Christian orthodoxy had clearly changed the religion of Jesus into the religion about Jesus.

Delivered February 25, 2000 to the Wells College Faculty Club