Pre-Reformation Church History I:
Lecture Notes
Fall 1959
IBRI Syllabi #23
Allan A. MacRae
President & Professor
Faith Theological Seminary
© 2014 John P. MacRae
Abstract
This is the first semester of a two-semester course in Pre-Reformation Church History. These lectures were transcribed from a sound-recording and only lightly edited, so they still have much of a spoken flavor. They begin with introductory matters, followed by a presentation of the world into which Christianity came, including the Roman Empire, Hellenism and Judaism. Thereafter the course is divided into centuries, this first semester covering the first four centuries of the Christian era. Typical topics include Christian interaction with the Roman Empire, Christian leaders and writers, various heresies and theological developments.
Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute
A. The Method of the course
B. The Value of Studying Church History
1. It can be a source of great encouragement to us
2. The purpose of studying Church History Negatively
a. Not to learn what is true in theology
b. not to learn how God desires us to worship Him
c. Is not to learn God's plan for our lives
3. The purpose of studying Church History Positively
a. To see how God has worked in the past
b. To see how Satan has worked in the past
c. To see how much of our social and religious culture is historical rather than logical or Biblical in origin
d. To become acquainted with great men of the past and to see the points of strength and weakness
e.
To get illustrations for Divine truths
C. Divisions of Church History
1. History is a continuum -- breaks are not usually complete at any one point
2. Centuries are a convenient means of general division
3. Church history is usually divided into three major sections
a. Ancient church history - After Apostolic Age
b. Medieval church history - After the fall of Rome
c.
Modern church history - After the Reformation
D. Remarks about Dates
E. What is History?
F. What is the Church?
G. What is Church History?
II. The World into which Christianity Came
A. The Roman Empire
1. Its Importance (in church history)
2. How It Came into Being
a. It was a Gradual Growth
b. In Rome there had developed a constitutional system with a large measure of individual liberty
c. A gradual extension of the rights of Roman citizenship to conquered peoples
d. There was a concentration of power in experienced hands
e. The Tensions which were largely the result of extremely rapid conquest, eventually resulted in concentration of ultimate power in one head
3. The nature of the Roman Empire
a. Strong Central Power
b. A Great Tradition of Law and of Personal Liberty
4. A rapid survey of the history of the Roman Empire
a. The Julian Line (30 BC-68 AD)
(1) Augustus (30 BC-14 AD)
(2) Tiberius (14-47 AD)
(3) Caligula (37-41 AD)
(4) Claudius (41-54 AD)
(5) Nero (54-68 AD)
b. The Flavian line (69-96)
(1) Vespasian (69-79)
(2) Titus (79-81)
(3) Domitian (81-96)
c. The Nerva-Antonines (90-193)
(1) Nerva (96-98)
(2) Trajan (98-117)
(3) Hadrian (117-138)
(4) Antoninus Pius (138-161)
(5) Marcus Aurelius (161-180)
(6) Commodus (180-192)
5. Advantages to Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire
(1) Comparative Peace and Safety
(2) Lack of Borders
(3) Roads
6. Disadvantages to Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire.
a. The Great Importance of the Personality of the Emperor
b.
The Development of Official Opposition
B. Hellenism
1. The Achievements of Greece
a. Culture, Science, Art, Literature, etc
b. Failure in Government
2. The Spread of Greek Civilization and Language: The Hellenistic Age
3. Advantages to Christianity
a. The Existence of a Common Language widely understood
b. This Language was Uniquely Fitted for the Expression of Complex and Sublime Ideas
c. Partly as a Result of Greek Philosophy, There was a Widespread Attitude of Skepticism Regarding Paganism and of Longing for Something Better
4. Disadvantages to Christianity
a. Many, particularly of the Lower Classes, were greatly attached to the Greek gods
b. The Widespread Skepticism of Everything Supernatural
among a Small but Influential Class
C. Judaism
1. Judaism was represented in all parts of the Empire
2. Factions among the Jews
a. The Sadducees
b. The Pharisees
c. The Essenes
3. High Spots in the History of Judaism during the First Two Centuries
a. The Destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD
b. Simon Bar Kokhba, 132 AD
III. The Church in the First Century
A. The Beginning of the Church
1. Evidence in Acts and the Epistles
2. The Importance of the Resurrection
B. The Period of Little Evidence
1. How does there come to be so little evidence?
a. The Type of Writing Material
b. The Lack of Stimulus to Write History
c. The Expectation of the Soon-return of Christ
2. Why had God allowed such a gap in our knowledge?
3. Traditions about the Apostles
4. I Clement
5. Information from Non-Christian Sources
a. Josephus
b. Suetonius on Claudius
c. Tacitus and Suetonius on Nero
6. Information on Domitian's Persecution
C. The Concluding Summary
IV. The Church in the Second Century
A. The Roman Empire
1. Nerva (96-98)
2. Trajan (98-117)
3. Hadrian (117-138)
4. Antoninus Pius (138-161)
5. Marcus Aurelius (161-180)
6. Commodus (180-192)
7. Septimius Severus (193-211)
B. Pliny's Correspondence with Trajan
1. Evidence of the Spread of Christianity
2. Evidence of the Official Roman Attitude toward
Christianity
C. Ignatius
1. His Letters
2. His Idea of Martyrdom
3. His Idea of the Place of a Bishop
4. His Idea of the Catholic Church
D. The Apostolic Fathers
1. General Remarks
2. Early Christian Literature
a. Clement
b. Ignatius
c. Barnabas
d. Hermas
e. Epistle of Diognetus
f. Aside on the NT Apocrypha
3. Papias
4. Polycarp
E. The Apologists
1. First Apologists (to Hadrian, all lost)
a. Quadratus
b. Aristides
c. Aristo
2. Justin Martyr (ca.100-ca.166)
3. Tatian of Assyria
4. Melito of Sardis
F. Gnosticism
1. The Meaning of the word Gnosis
a. Previous de-Mythologizing of Pagan Religions
b. The Claim to Superior Knowledge
c. Apocryphal Books
2. The Roots of Gnosticism in the First Century
a. New Testament Evidence
b. Simon Magus
c. Cerinthus
3. Points Common to Most Gnostic Groups
a. The Claim to Possession of Higher Knowledge
b. Belief that Matter is Essentially Evil.
c. Belief in Angelic Intermediaries and in opposition between the good God and the creator of this world
d. Denial of the Incarnation
e. Their Attitude toward the body
4. The Great Variety of Gnostic Groups
5. Gnostic Leader: Marcion
a. His life
b. His relation to Polycarp
c. Marcion's Attitude toward the Scriptures
6. The Great Spread and Ultimate Decline of Gnosticism
7. Some Effects of Gnosticism on the Church
a. Determine exactly the True Books
b. Enlarge the Idea of a Catholic Church
G. Persecution by Marcus Aurelius
1. The Character of the Emperor
2. The Persecution Particularly in Gaul
3. The Cessation of Persecution under Commodus
H. Irenaeus
1. His Life
2. His Opposition to Gnosticism
3. A Source of Knowledge of Church History
4. His Attitude toward Other Christian Groups
J. Tertullian
1. The First Latin Theological Writer
2. His Life
3. His Writings
4. Tertullian's Influence
K. Montanism
L. the Papacy in the Second Century
1. The word Pope
2. The Insignificance of most of the Roman bishops in the 2nd century
3. Anicetus (155-166)
4. Eleutherius (177-190)
5. Victor (190-202)
M. Conclusion of our discussion about this century
1. The Growth during This Century
2. Principal Centers of Christianity
a. Asia Minor
b. Antioch
c. Jerusalem
d. Alexandria
e. North Africa (Carthage)
f. Gaul
g. Rome
A. The Roman Empire
1. Septimius Severus (193-211)
2. Caracalla (211-217)
3. Elagabalus (218-222)
4. Alexander Severus (222-235)
5. Maximinus (235-238)
6. Phillip the Arabian (244-249)
B. Monarchianism
l. Dynamic Monarchianism
2. Patrapassianism
3. Sabellianism or Modalism
4. Beryllus of Bostra
C. Hippolytus
D. Clement and Origen
1. Clement of Alexandria
a. The Catechetical School
b. His writings
c. The Allegorical Method
d. Clement's reference to the Didache
2. Origen
3. Origen's Writings
4. Origen's Views
E. Roman Emperors from 249 to 300
1. Decius (249-251)
2. Valerian (253-260)
3. Gallienus (260-268)
4. Aurelian (270-275)
5. Beginning of Diocletian's Reign (284-305)
F. Cyprian
1. His life in general
2. Cyprian's Idea of the Church
3. The Controversy over his Flight
4. The Problem of the Lapsed
5. The Novatian Schism
6. The Problem of Heretical Baptism
7. Cyprian's Relation to Rome
8. Cyprian's Martyrdom
G. Mythraism and Manichaeanism
1. Mythraism
2. Manichaeanism
H. Neo-Platonism
1. Its Background
2. Ammoniacus Saccas
3. Plotinus
4. Porphyry
J. Forty Years of Freedom from Persecution
1. Growth of the Church
2. Worldliness
3. Paul of Samosata
4. Lucian
K. The Church of Rome in the 3rd Century
VI. The Church in the Fourth Century
A. The Persecution of Diocletian
1. The Situation at 303
2. The Outbreak of Persecution
3. The Attitude of Constantius Chlorus
4. Persecution in the East
5. The Greatest Persecution in the History of the Christian Church
6. Persecution in Italy and North Africa
7. The Death of Galerius
B. Constantine the Great
1. The Rise of Constantine
2. Constantine's Victory
3. Edict of Toleration, 313 AD
4. The Advance in Christian Scholarship under Constantine
a. Eusebius' Church History
b. Copies of the Bible
c. Study of Palestine
(1). Increased interest in Palestine
(2). Constantine's Mother
(3). Eusebius' Onomasticon
5. The Donatist Schism
6. Constantine's Social Legislation
7. The Council of Nicaea
8. The Founding of Constantinople
9. The Alleged Donation of Constantine
10. Constantine's character and Achievements
a. His Character
b. His Effect on the Christian Church
c. His Baptism
d. His Place in Secular History and in Church History
C. The Rise of Arianism and the Council of Nicaea
1. The Rise of Arianism
a. Its Leader
b. Its Background
c. Its Views. The views of Arianism
d. Its Dissemination
e. The Opposition to Arianism
f. Constantine's Attitude
2. The Council of Nicaea
a. The Calling of the Council
b. The Deliberations
c. The Homoousian Creed
d. Other Acts of the Council
(1). The Melitian Schism
(2). The Matter of Easter
(3). Centers of Church Leadership
3. The Arian Controversy to the Death of Constantine
a. The Work of Athanasius
b. The Political Maneuvers of the Arians
c. The Exile of Athanasius
d. the Return and Death of Arius
D. The Reign of Constantius
1. The Sons of Constantine
2. The Progress of Arianism
E. The reign of Julian (361-363)
1. Julian's Background
2. Julian's Religion
3. Julian's Attitude to Christianity
F. The Downfall of Arianism (363-381)
1. The Attitude of Valens (364-377)
a. The Reign of Jovian
b. The Accession of Valens
c. The Efforts of Valens to carry out the policies of Constantius
d. The Death of Valens
2. The Last Years of Athanasius
3. Hilary of Poitiers
4. The Cappadocian Fathers
a. Basil the Great
b. Gregory of Nazianzus
c. Gregory of Nyssa
5. The Elevation of Ambrose in Milan
6. The Accession of Theodosius
G. The First Council of Constantinople
1. The Calling of the Council
2. The End of Arianism
3. Macedonianism
4. Apollinarianism
5. Gregory and Nectarius
I have attended an institution where you would sign up for a course for one or two or three credit hours; you would go to class and you would sit there for that length of time, taking notes; and in the end of the year you glance over the notes, and then you take a brief examination, and receive one or two or three credit hours for the course, depending on the number of hours you sat through the week in the class. And in the very same institution, from the same professor, I had another course which would be a two hour credit course in which he has assigned fifteen or twenty hours of work to do every week. Since I had three or four courses before which did not average fifteen minutes a week, I did not feel justified in complaining, but it certainly seemed a sloppy way to handle things. I have been very anxious to avoid that sort thing here. And so we think of a credit hour as not an hour in fact; but we think of a credit hour as an hour in class and two hours' work outside class; or two hours in class and an hour work outside the class. In other words it means three hours a week in a credit hour.
And so, in all of our courses if you have an hour in class, the professor should assign you approximately two hours' work on the average; and sometimes it is difficult to keep the average, because sometimes there are particular things that take more time and there are other times when it is hard to find enough. We try to average three hours a week through the term for each credit hour class. There is one exception, in Hebrew. The beginning course in Hebrew has a physical problem, the problem of getting your eyes used to new letters. Hebrew would not be a particularly difficult subject if we used the letters we are accustomed to. But since the big job is getting your eyes used to these new letters, that takes time. We always felt that for Hebrew it is quite proper to expect a very considerable amount more of time in drilling on it than in other courses. That is an the only course in the Seminary in which we expect to spend normally an average of more than three hours total, including an hour in class and two hours outside ordinarily. Now, in church history, two years ago when I dealt with the Post-Reformation Church History, I gave three lectures a week for a two credit course, and the assignments corresponded to that. This semester I do not expect to do that; I expect to average two hours in class a week, and to assign, not over four hours on average of outside work.
You notice on the schedule that Church History meets on Tuesday morning at 9:20 and Wednesday morning at 9:20, and it says on Thursday morning 9:20, special. We will have that meeting tomorrow, at 9:20. Next week there is a good possibility that I will not be meeting with any class at all. I am expecting to average two hours a week throughout the term, but occasionally I have to be away; and this extra special hour will make it possible to adjust that a little, and I want to average two hours a week. I do not want to average three hours as I did two years ago. That means that you might have a little more outside work than they did two years ago. But the outside work, the assigned reading and the reports which I will assign, I expect them to be turned in on time, and I will deduct if they are not, except in the case of a person who is starting seminary for the first time. If you are taking beginning Greek and beginning Hebrew, I will give you a little extra leeway, because those courses build, and Church History, you might say, while they are interrelated, if you miss two weeks of Hebrew, you might as well quit and start all over next year. But if you miss two weeks of Church History, you can go on from the point where you are, and you will—with a certain amount of handicap—not be greatly handicapped; and you can make it up yourself, on vacation. So that if you are taking two beginning languages, simply mention that on your late paper, and I will understand that. Papers can be week or two later in that case, because I want you to keep up with your work in the languages. I am not going to assign any outside reading and reports enough to bring the total of six hours of week. I am not going to assign that much on the outside readings, because I feel that it is very important that when you start the lecture that you have the previous lectures in mind and therefore I am counting on you to review each lecture prior to the next lecture.
Now, it is very disconcerting when you deal with a very important problem, and after having dealt with it about an hour, somebody asks a question which shows that he has no slightest conception of what it is because he has not looked at his notes in between classes. I would like to ask everybody to take fifteen minutes to half an hour at least reviewing the previous lecture each time. I would like to ask you to do that. Human nature being what it is, asking would not provide. Some would wait and do it all night before the examinations, and so I find it necessary to do something that students detest very much, but I am sure that they will be very grateful later on; and that is to give spot quizzes at the beginning of the hour on the previous lecture, or on something earlier in the course. And as I say, the big part of the work of this course is to get in mind what we have dealt in class. Because my greatest interest in church history is not having you learn a lot of dates and facts; you can simply take a book and memorize them. I do not see any great value in that, if that is all you get. My interest is in having you have an understanding of these things; what they mean; and what their interrelation is; what importance they should have for our lives; and if I have to spend the first ten minutes for each hour trying to remind you of what I gave the hour before, I would waste a lot of time; and to do that, I would have to lecture three hours a week, and I am not going to do that this semester. So I am going to give you quizzes very frequently; and if you do not like it, please go out back where nobody can see you and yell about it for five minutes and get it out of your system; and then come in here and write a good correct answer to the questions that I will ask you in the quiz. I am not just interested in your taking something up two days before the final exams, putting it on the paper, and then forgetting it; but I am interested in your getting it, and so you have to keep on reviewing.
So, there will not be such a great amount of outside reading for this course, but there will be very considerable amount of review of the lectures expected; and you should certainly have at least have an outline of the previous lectures in mind; and the main facts with which it deals, and the main understanding of the main features.
Now,
the most important thing in this class is the attempt I make to give you the
understanding of the meaning of church history. And what I understand to be the
meaning of it you cannot find in books; but you have to read many books to get
the full view which I would present; and therefore, if you are going to take
the class, you should always be present in class. We do not have cuts in the
Seminary. We consider it a rather infantile matter, to give cuts. By Seminary
we should have passed that stage. We expect everyone always to be in class. If
you feel that any course it is a waste of time to be in class, please come and
talk to me about it. Because it is altogether possible that some members of the
faculty—including myself—may have gotten off on a tangent, and that he is
wasting time. It is possible, and in such a case we should remedy it
immediately. It is equally possible that you have misunderstood any particular matter;
and in that case, we will try to make it clear to you. Please do come and talk
to me about it. We mean that every one of our courses is important, and we
expect everyone to be present on time. The method of this course, then, is
primarily a lecture with assigned readings. It is not a research course. It is
a lecture course to get the understanding of the meaning of church history as it may be vital in our lives and in
our service for our Lord. That naturally leads to
B. The Value of Studying
Church History.
1. It can be a source of great encouragement to us. I was a student in a modernist college, holding my faith in the Scripture, believing the Bible to be true, and believing in the great doctrines of the Christianity; but it was a college which five years before had been a thoroughly evangelical school, and it was in a process of transition within the two or three years afterwards, and then became a completely modernistic college. When I was there in class, there was a way of impressing on you an attitude that the teachings of Christianity were a lot of old myths and fables. That way, even without much presentation pressed on us, I could not avoid it.
And I cannot tell you what an encouragement it was when, in connection with a course, I made a study of the first church council, the Nicene Council of 325; and in reading about the council, how tremendously they were excited, those people were at that time, 325 years after Christ, 1600 years ago, about the doctrine of whether Jesus Christ was fully God, or whether He was in some way partly God. God rested on Him—something like that—and when I saw how those men from all over the Roman Empire felt so long ago that this was such a tremendously vital matter; and I was thinking that there are other matters that are still more important than this matter. It was such a great relief, that such weight was pressing upon them; to get the feeling of these things in church history where these men—many important people—had felt that these matters were so important. To see how Christianity began and how the little group of the disciples, a little group of scattered disciples who had fled for their lives that their master had been crucified, and they were afraid to admit to anybody that they were connected with him, and some of these conditions of terror and confusion among these comparatively uneducated people. There began a movement which spread through the whole Roman Empire until that power, one of the greatest powers the world has ever seen, finally being unable to crush it, had to succumb to it.
And the whole Roman Empire was filled with this teaching in two or three hundred years; but to see how it occurred, what a source of encouragement to us! When we face the encroaching modernism, and the encroaching unbelief and denial of Christianity, sometimes it looks almost hopeless; but we see what God did then. What an encouragement to us when we read about Martin Luther, and see how the greater part of the world was filled with formalism, and with an attitude which accepted a great many Christian doctrines, but which they did not apply them to their hearts—did not get their real value to their life, to the soul—and how this man risked his life to begin to present these matters; and there was situation after situation where others who are doing exactly the same thing have been killed for their faith, and their doctrines have been completely eradicated from the area where they spoke; but how in the providence of God, Martin Luther was able to continue fiercely; and from that little start, there spread over half of Europe—and over the whole northern section of Europe—a new understanding of the gospel that made a tremendous impact. How utterly hopeless it was when Luther began the new work of Reformation. What an encouragement to us! What an encouragement it can be when we study that little band of the Pilgrims in 1609, that little group of comparatively uneducated people, dissatisfied with the formalism which was in the church of their day—though these churches were presenting the true Christian doctrines—but in such a formal way and without real opportunity to study the Bible for yourself, and see what it taught, and make it real in your life; and how these little groups of people with no resources stepped out to serve the Lord; and other groups which stepped out in the previous years had been annihilated by war, by torture, by shipwreck and by other means, but how God took this little group and moved them to the United States, and enabled them to survive under tremendous difficulties; and they set a pattern which for two or three hundred years had an effect upon this country which made the nation different from almost any nation that the world had ever seen before.
You
see how the hand of God works against the seemingly impossible obstacles. What
a tremendous source of encouragement! Well, then, I think one of the greatest
purposes of studying church history is this encouraging which we can get out of
it. But I want to go on to,
2. The purpose
of studying church history negatively. I think that this is tremendously
important.
a. It is not to learn what is true in theology. We do not study church history to learn what is true about God; to learn how one can be saved; to learn the great facts of the origin of the world. We do not study church history for this purpose. Church history is not reliable source for these things. I believe that the so-called Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult which is presenting false doctrine. I admire the zeal these men show; but I detest the harmful results on people's lives of the false doctrines that they present. But one of their pamphlets has a wonderful title which is taken from the Scripture. "Let God be true, and let every man a liar." It is a fact when it comes to knowing what the truth is about God; what the truth is about the great things of the universe. There is one way to find it out. And that is from the study of the Scripture.
Now, church history can be tremendously important to us in showing us what an effect the Bible has had; and where people have studied the Bible, and have attempted to follow it, God has tremendously used them; and where people used other means of getting truth, the church has been a failure. The Bible is the source of knowledge. The Bible is the source of this knowledge.
I give this course in Church History, and under these present circumstances, once in three years. We go right straight through; and all our students who take their courses in three years get this course from me continuously; but if they take it in four years, as a good many do, they may get it in their first year and then in their last year, but I do not give it every year.
I do not feel that we should have a full-time man in church history. If we have a full-time man in church history, he will naturally be entitled to give electives in the courses and develop a department. I see a real value in developing a department in church history, after a person has had five or six years of exegesis. But I believe that the vital thing is to know what the Bible says, and that is the vital thing; and therefore, we must cram church history into two years; and we try to get the basic, vital things during that time; and we do not give any other electives in church history, interesting as they may be, and valuable as they might be, because we think that in the course of three or four years—or further as a Master's degree would lead you—we feel that the main thing should be exegesis. It is a question, "What does God say?" The whole world may turn against the truth, but that does not make it any less true. You cannot settle truths by counting heads. You see who knows the facts; and when it comes to the great facts of eternity, I often think that many of our philosophers are like a group of very highly intelligent people who had never crossed the Pacific ocean, had never been to the Pacific ocean, and had never talked with anybody about the Pacific ocean, and had never read any book about the ocean. In these days of widespread information it is hard to imagine such a situation.
But if you will imagine for a moment, think of men of tremendous intellect, a wonderful thing, who have never crossed the Pacific Ocean, never talked with anybody who had ever seen the Ocean, and who have never seen anybody who had seen the Ocean; these men go up on Iron Mountain near San Francisco; and there above the clouds they are able to look away to the Pacific Ocean, and one of them says, "I wonder if there is any country over there?" and then the other says, "Well, now, I think I can give you some philosophic arguments to prove that there is not any such thing." This man says, "I can give you a better philosophic argument that there is a country," and then they argue back and forth; and they may have some very acute reasoning as to whether there is a country beyond the Pacific ocean or not, or whether that is simply the end, or whether if you keep on going around, you will come back to America. They may have some very acute reasoning, but the only way to find it out is for somebody to go there; or to read a book written by somebody who has been there. They might discuss, "Is there anything over there or if there is any, what sort of country is it? What kind of language do they use? Do the rivers really run from north to south like the Mississippi? Or do they run from south to north like the Nile? Or do they run from west to the east like the Yangtzse? Or do they run from east to west like the Columbia?"
They could think of these things, and give illustrations and comparisons, and they could show wonderful acumen; and they could think of all the possibilities, but they would never know with certainty whether there would be a country; and if there is, what kind of country that would be, and in what situation it would be at all. They would not know unless either one of them went or talked with somebody who had been, or read a book written by one who had been there. And no human being has ever gone beyond the grave and come back to tell us about it, aside from Jesus Christ our Lord. We do not know what is beyond the grave. No amount of philosophic thinking can possibly tell us.
We do not know anything about God. We can see that there must be a God. As Paul said, "If you look at nature, you see the works of God; you see His power, you see His majesty which is implicit in nature except that Satan has blinded our eyes so that we cannot see. But we see the power. We see the greatness. We do not know His character. We do not know whether He is a good God, who sends rain to make things grow and the sun to keep us warm and all this. Or whether He is a cruel, ruthless god who sends hurricanes and floods, tempests and tornados. We do not know whether He is good or is bad. We do not know whether He has made us for a joke and He is going to crush us with the turn of His hand. Or whether He loves us and made us for fellowship with Himself. These and thousand other questions can only be answered by reading the book that was written by the One who knows—that God Himself overshadowed the human writers, and led them in their writing so that it would give facts about these things.
And therefore, if we are going to know what is true in theology, church history will tell us what people have thought; and it is good to know what people have thought, because it suggests matters for investigation; but it does not give you the answer. Human thinking, human reasoning is wonderful to suggest matters for investigation; but it is useless when it comes to giving you answers about things we cannot reach. And the other side of the moon—except for the satellites that go around it and take a picture of it—nobody on earth could tell what it is like until that happens. Nobody has ever seen the other side of the moon. It might be utterly different from this side.
I remember when I was a student in seminary; I used to go bike-riding for a little exercise. One day I was going along and I saw the head of the most attractive young woman I had ever seen for years. Oh, my, as I saw her, I just wondered what her face would look like. I said to myself, I do not want to embarrass her; I do not want to scare her; and so as I got back, I turned around and saw she was at least forty years older than she seemed from the back view. It was absolutely different. And nobody could have told that without seeing her. You could not reason it out, and the same is true about the other side of the moon. You have to see to know what it is like. For the great facts of eternity there is one way to find out; that is, to see what someone has said who knows, someone has told who has seen them. God Himself is the only one who has. And therefore, our only source of knowledge of theology is the Bible.
Thus
exegesis is so much more important than church history. While I feel that one
course of two years, two credit hours, is tremendously helpful in our Christian
life and work, I do not feel that in a three-year seminary degree course more
time should be given to it. Exegesis is vital to see what it really means, and
get into it, and get the facts that God has given us. Our purpose in church
history is not to learn what is true in theology.
b. It is not to learn how God desires us to worship Him. Someone showed me a letter two years ago that had been received from a friend who, during the war, had been to the U.N. forces in Africa; and they said, "If you had seen as I did the remains of the ruined churches of the second century—all these different things that they thought were important in worshipping God—you would realize how silly it is to just go to a church and sit there and listen to a minister preach. How important it is to have the right formal ceremonies and all that."
Well, the question of how much form and ceremony are desired to use in worshipping God is one which can be decided on the basis of the Bible, not one which can be decided by church history. When you think about this church that they found the ruins, they said it was from the second century AD My guess is that it was from the last part of the second century AD We do not have a great deal from the first part of the second century. Then suppose it was 175; suppose it was the 145th year after Christ died. 145 years before now was 1815. If you are ever up to the Boston area—driving up there—stop on the way at what they call Sturbridge Village. They try to keep the town just as people lived in 1800; and as you look around at the conditions of life and the way people lived in 1800, you cannot just imagine the changes that have taken place. Most of you could not imagine the changes that have taken place since I was a boy. You just could not imagine. Most of them take place so gradually that there is not much said about it in our books. But life is constantly changing, and the way people worship God in a certain church 150 years after Christ died does not prove much as to how Christ wanted us to worship God.
If
you could get all the churches of 150 years after Christ died, you would learn
perhaps quite a bit. We cannot get one per cent of it. But if you could get all
of them, you would not learn what God's will is as to how to worship Him. The
one way to learn that is to see what the Bible teaches. I believe that was
God's intention, in order to help keep us from this danger into which so many,
many people fall, that He purposely thought that after the New Testament was
written there should be very, very little Christian literature that was
preserved for more than a hundred years. For the next hundred years the amount
of Christian literature that has been preserved would not, I believe, make up a
third of what is in the New Testament; and much of it is highly questionable as
to when it was written or who wrote it. You get along two or three centuries
later, you have a tremendous amount of Christian literature, but there is a big
gap in what has been preserved. I believe that gap should warn us against this
idea that many of you have: "All that even the early church did, that is
right." No, what the Bible teaches is right. From the study of Church
History you can get tremendous encouragement to go to the Bible and see what it
teaches, and follow it and get that encouragement; but the purpose of studying
church history is not to get an authoritative source of deciding how God wants
us to worship Him, and then
c. It is not to learn God's plan for our lives. Church history—from this you can get tremendous encouragement. Like how God used people in the past. You can get tremendous encouragement by seeing how men have served God and how God blessed them, God used them. You can get great help in your life in church history. But if you want to know God's plan for your life, the place to go is the Bible. That is the only source of real truth. History is interesting, and it has value. But for the Christians, the source of knowledge, the source of getting in touch with God, and learning His will for us should not be church history; it should be the study of God's Word. This may seem like repetition so many times, but it is amazing how many people you find, that the biography of some individuals, what some particular men have gotten, what some particular church groups have gotten, that to them seems to settle most everything. God has given us such marvelous treasures in the Bible. And that has been our central feature at Faith Seminary from its very inception; we have been insistent that philosophy has its place; that history has its place; but the one dependable source of knowledge in Divine things is the Bible; and the most important thing a Christian can do, no matter what line of service for the Lord he is going to be in, is to learn to understand the Bible.
It does not do much good just to hold it in our hands. What is in God's Word is all true, and you cannot know too much about it. You know a few wonderful verses and that is grand. I had some people say to me, "Well, we have got John 3:16, what else do we need?" Well, if you say John 3:16 and all the truths in the Bible that fit with John 3:16, that correspond to or develop it, put them on one side; and put the rest of the Bible on the other, I would say that by all means, that is the heart of the Bible. But God did not give us just John 3:16. God gave us a book with sixty-six books and He intended that every one of them would be vital in your life, in your work, and in the activity of the Christian.
So,
He wants us to know what the book of Nahum teaches us; and what second John has
to say; the meaning of James for our lives; and what is the importance of 2
Samuel; and there is tremendous importance in every one of these. And to know
what the Bible says, what it teaches, and to get into it. To see what is really
meant at those points where people can easily twist and get any subtle meanings
out of it. That is the most important thing. But church history certainly has
its place. So, we go on to
3. The purpose
of studying Church History Positively. We looked at it negatively, and now we
look at it positively.
a. To see how God has worked in the past. I do not need to say much about that now, because much of what I have already said falls into that category. What an encouragement it is to see how God caused that the Christianity would spread through the whole Roman Empire. And it would overturn the attitudes of the pagans and philosophers and of the opponents of Christianity completely in three hundred years. What an encouragement it is to see how the Reformation took place. What an encouragement it is to see how He took the little band of the pilgrims and set up a standard that affected an entire nation from this little group of comparatively uneducated people, what they were able to accomp1ish with His help. What an encouragement so many things in church history can be, if God has a purpose, and if you are completely consecrated to Him, and if you really think of His will, and not your own pleasure, or for your own glory, or your own fame. But you are really seeking His will; who knows what He may accomplish through you?
Church
History does not tell you what to do, but it encourages you tremendously in doing
it, and it is a fair illustration of how God has worked in the past. We see
many of them, and I do not mean now to elaborate on this further. Now to speak
of it under the second point, which is much less familiar, but is I believe
quite important.
b. To see how Satan has worked in the past. Anybody who has the idea that this world is a world in which God has just gradually squeezed Satan out, and pretty soon all is going to be a completely Christian world, simply does not know much about these facts. Yet there are people who are moving ahead on that assumption; and unfortunately in order to move on that assumption, they have to change the definition of Christianity until it becomes something entirely different from what the Bible teaches. But God has permitted Satan to be the prince of this world; God has permitted Satan to have such a power in this world that, as we read in the book of Jude, even the archangel Michael, striving with Satan about the body of Moses, durst not give him a railing accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke thee."
Satan is a tremendous power in this world. God permits him. And it is easy for us to forget. People say, "I remember back in 1915, people said, 'Oh, there cannot be a God who would permit this war.'" Well, they do not know anything about sin. They do not know anything of the reality and nature of Satan that God permits for His own purposes to continue through this age. And we cannot resist him in our own power. Sometimes people say, "Resist the Devil and he will flee from you." That is a misquotation of the Scripture. The Bible says, "Submit yourself unto God, [and God will resist the Devil]. He will flee from you." In the power of God, Satan can do nothing to injure us.
And church history shows how, in case after case, people would step up boldly to do great things for God in their own strength, and utterly fail. We need to know the tremendous power of Satan, and his reality; and the fact that he is here, and he will be here until the end of this age. We need to be aware of his tremendous power, and we need to be aware of his wiles. He will do his best to destroy our witness; to destroy our activities as he can. If he finds that he cannot do that, then he tries to push us into where we are putting our whole effort into some side issue. This may be good, but it is not accomplishing much in the Lord's work. Sometimes I feel as if struggle with Satan is like a tug of war: here we are pulling and pulling and pulling. And on the other side, Satan is pulling and pulling that way; and when he finds that he cannot pull us over his way, then he just lets it go, and we fall over. And we fail to accomplish what is right; and the right place is not way over there or way over here. It is wherever God's Word teaches us that it should be.
Satan will fool us from a dozen different angles. We learn from history how Christianity was a dominant force all through the Near East; how in Arabia there were Christian churches everywhere in Arabia. How in Egypt, almost everyone was a professing Christian, and there were thousands and thousands of earnest Christians in Egypt. And then we see in these areas people got into fighting and scrapping over minor points that were unclear in God's Word; and instead of giving their efforts there trying to win to the Savior those who did not have personal knowledge of him, there they were fighting over things that are not made clear in God's Word; and they fought over these things to such an extent that the outside world decided that these little comparatively minor things were what the Christians were interested in; and they had no knowledge of the real meaning of salvation.
And then the Mohammed came forward in Arabia, with that great teaching, that there is no God but one. And with that terribly distorted teaching he added to it, he swept Arabia; and eventually his force swept Egypt; and Christianity has been almost powerless through that whole area ever since; and God permitted Satan to take one of the greatest Christian areas of the world to be turned into desert as far as Christianity is concerned. Today it is the hardest thing in the world to do Christian work wherever Islam is.
When I was in seminary, we had a missionary from Egypt who told how a friend of his who was a missionary was in a little town in England. He was speaking in a little church, and there he told them about this great missionary work in Egypt; and all he said was that you have to be so careful because of the Islamic laws about apostasy. "Clear over here in England nobody there would know what I say, and so I will tell you about a young man who came to me at night, like Nicodemus who talked with Jesus, who learned about Christ, and who was secretly baptized it so nobody would know about it." Two days after he told it, this fellow was pushed under a streetcar and was killed.
And the man who told us about it believed that that was evidence of the pervasive power till this day of that teaching of the apostasy in Islam. And the result is that no missionaries who work there for forty years of earnest labor have more than five converts. Now, there may be hundreds of them who became secret converts. Humanly speaking, all could have been converted, if the Christians in Egypt and Arabia kept their eyes on the main things of the gospel; and people had seen Christianity as it really should be, instead of in comparison with what Mohammed seemed to say was the truth, so his forces swept across the land.
There are many other illustrations in history, as we will see.
Back in 1550 one third of the people of Poland were Christians—were Protestants—and most of the nobles of Poland were Protestants. No one could become the king of Poland without taking an oath that he would do nothing in any way to injure Protestantism in 1550. And then there came a dispute on certain points of doctrine—which have their importance, but not to be compared with the great fact of salvation through Christ on which all the Protestants would agree. But this dispute came there, and the bulk of them disagreed with the teaching which came to be accepted in the great part of northern Germany; so the people there [northern Germany] took no interest in trying to help them; and the Jesuits sent highly trained, learned, skilful rhetoricians to hold a public debate and to win people through argument to stand there; and they got enough people to stand with them; and then they began inciting the mobs and attacking the Protestant churches, and in fifty years all the Protestantism was wiped out of Poland; and today, if you take all the criminals and prisoners in the United States, I have heard it said that if there would be two or three nationalities of which there is most criminal activity, Poland would be among them. And one reason is that for all these years they been denied the opportunity of hearing the gospel in Poland because of a very slight theological difference. And Satan was able to destroy this tremendous work that true Christianity had made in Poland.
We learn from this how Satan worked in the past. We learn not to think, "Oh, I am going to step out and I am going to win the world in my own strength for Christ." We must submit ourselves to our God, and follow him; and then we can resist the Devil, and we can accomplish great things for Him. We will meet at 9:20 tomorrow morning.
Now we were yesterday speaking about the purpose of studying church history, positively. We noticed under that small a, how God worked in the past. It is very thrilling to see how God works. But you miss a great part of the value of it if you do not also see the other purpose of it, b, to see how the Satan has worked in the past. Everyone is familiar with the name of John Calvin, one of the greatest theologians who ever lived, but I regret to say that a great many people do not know another phase of Calvin's activity which was just as important as a theological writer. Calvin was a man who was tremendously interested in the spread of the gospel.
There is a widespread belief that he wrote a speech, which the director of the University of Paris gave, which presented the gospel very clearly at the opening of the University year. As a result the director and Calvin both had to flee for their lives. Well, many people were burned at the stake in France for believing the gospel and trying to present it to others, but Calvin took refuge in Geneva; and there in Geneva in the midst of great difficulties and obstacles, he proceeded to become established; but his primary interest there was to make it a center for the evangelization of France. So, over the years, he received and protected hundreds of refugees. But he was not content with that, so he trained them in the gospel and in the presentation of the gospel. And they went back to France, and these men went about from door to door widely presenting the gospel. One day in a park at Paris, a little boy started to sing one of Calvin's hymns, and somebody else joined, and somebody else joined in, and pretty soon there were five thousand people singing this hymn; and it was apparent how widely the gospel was reaching through France as a result of the work of these men whom Calvin was training. Many of them were captured, and many of them were killed; but others avoided being captured, and kept on pushing and working, until over a third of the people of France were followers of Calvin.
The Romanist leaders set to work to try to destroy this; they attacked them in two wars, and in one tremendous massacre thousands were killed; but a year later there seemed to be more than there were before. In southern France, there would be a town in which there would be a great mass with an archbishop celebrating it, but only fifteen people present; and then two blocks away were five thousand people out to hear the preaching of the gospel. And the Jesuit order was determined to eliminate them. The Jesuit Order was started after Calvin began his work; but it has been the most able instrument in wiping out the gospel the world has ever seen—perhaps with the exception of Islam.
The Jesuit order set to work to try to win France back to Romanism, and in the city of Paris, they managed to fill the people with fanaticism; but outside of Paris, their activity was not so successful. And the king of France died; and the next man in line was a Protestant, what they call a Huguenot. And in several battles his forces met the Romanist forces and defeated them; and all of France came to be in their hands. But they could not take Paris, because the Jesuits so filled the people of Paris with hatred, and with fanatical zeal against Protestantism. They were living on grass and herbs, but they still resisted; and then the young Henry [the Protestant heir to the throne], who was an able general and leader of the Protestant party said, "What is the use being king without Paris? What is France without Paris? Paris is worth a mass," and so he announced his desire to join the Roman Church. One of the priests in Paris preached a sermon in which he said, "This morning my dog went to mass, so let's make him king!" And they ridiculed Henry, and they said he was dishonest in pretending he wanted to be a Romanist, that he was just doing so to advance himself. But the Jesuits said, "No, we must take his word; we must accept his sincerity." And so he became a Romanist.
So he became ruler of France; and he did a tremendous amount to help the people of France; and he made a treaty—the Edict of Nantes—by which the Protestants were guaranteed religious freedom forever. They were guaranteed there would be absolutely no discrimination in government office on the basis of whether they were Protestants or Romanists, and they were guaranteed equal opportunities everywhere, even in the cities. In the south of France they were even allowed to keep garrisons to ensure their safety. Henry promised that the Catholics could bring up Henry's children; and so they brought up Henry's children, and they became chief officers and representatives. Henry's lazy invalid son Louis XIII became king; he never bothered much about anything; but Cardinal Richelieu was the power behind the throne.
And when the Protestants would have a great meeting with thousands present, in a synod representing nearly a third of the people of France, Cardinal Richelieu greeted them and thanked them for their loyalty to their country, and showed every friendship toward them. The only thing was he said, "Why should you have garrisons in your cities? That is a state within a state. You should respect the country to protect you; we are perfectly safe. We are all Frenchmen and nobody will interfere with you." And he persuaded them to give up the garrisons, all except one city. So, that one he attacked. After a considerable siege, he succeeded in capturing it and he took away its garrison, but he left the city free.
Then Henry IV's grandson Louis XIV became king; and the Protestants were still a great force in France, and many of them were in leading positions in the government as they had been for years. Their churches were preaching the gospel and their people were going forward to important positions and leaderships in every way. But in Louis's court the Jesuits had control. And Louis sank into the depths of wickedness and licentiousness and in sin; and the Jesuit preachers preached the terrors of hell for his own ungodly life, and Louis said, "I felt as though I could hear scourging around me, and what hope is there for me?" And the Jesuit confessor said, "There is no reason for you to worry." He said, "Why not? From what you preached about the terrible fate that people will have who have lived like I live." Well, the confessor said, "You can easily offset your wicked life by some good deed." Well, he said, "What good deeds could I do enough of to offset the wickedness that I had in my life?" And the Jesuit confessor said, "Well, that is simple. A large part of your country does not recognize the pope as the supreme leader; and they are preaching salvation by faith instead of attending the mass. He said, they are denying the doctrines of the Roman Church. Get them out of your country, and God will bless you forever."
And Louis immediately set to work; and gradually he removed the Protestants from high positions in the government; and gradually he made it more and more difficult for them; and then he began to put troops in the cities where they had a great number of Protestants, and put licentious soldiers into the homes of the outstanding Protestants, and giving them license to be as mean and disagreeable to the people as they felt like being; but if somebody turned to Romanism, they stopped; he was immediately treated well, and a great many who had not really had the heart of the gospel in their minds gave up and joined the Roman Church; and then it cut down to the real Christians.
And then Louis announced that the Edict of Nantes was repealed. This Edict which had been in effect for two-thirds of a century, he repealed. He said, "Every Protestant minister must leave the country within sixty days. No one else is permitted to leave the country, but all must join the Roman Church, and attend Romanist churches or they will be imprisoned for life or sentenced to be galley slaves."
And thousands of men managed to get out of the country. Thousands of them went to Berlin and kept up Protestant services for two and half centuries after this time. Thousands of them went to South America; and thousands of them came to this country despite efforts to keep them in France. Others could not get out of the country, and fled into the mountains; and there they managed to survive, but they were hunted down by the soldiers and were killed; and thus the Protestants was reduced to maybe 3% of the people of France. And it was two centuries after that before they had freedom of religion.
"Paris is worth a mass," Henry said. The Devil certainly used the Jesuits, and certainly used Henry's compromise to destroy one of the greatest evangelistic works the world has ever seen—one of the greatest outreaches of the gospel. Today France is one of the hardest countries in the world to reach people for Christ. It is one of the hardest places to make an impact on the lives and hearts of the people. The country as a whole is nominally Romanist, but the bulk of the people are actually atheist.
I heard a French diplomat say once, in order to make any progress in French politics you have to be known as one who is against the church. But if you become a representative outside France, then you have to be known as an ardent supporter of the church, because France is known as the defender of the Romanist Church. This was a few years ago. I do not know under De Gaulle how things have changed.
This country—which could have been one of the greatest Protestant nations and one of the greatest centers to send missionaries throughout the world—became almost a nonentity as far as the preaching of the gospel is concerned. And it is one of the outstanding instances in history how Satan has worked in the past.
God
does not want us to underestimate Satan. He wants us to realize that he is
ready and anxious to wreck our testimony for the Lord. We should submit
ourselves to our God. Make sure that we are in line with His purposes, and we
are putting Christ first in everything—not our own money, our own comfort,
anything except His purposes. And then we can destroy the works of the Devil.
But if we have only gone half-way Satan may and probably will defeat us. Now
the third purpose of studying the church history is
c. To see how much of our social and religious culture is historical rather than logical or Biblical in origin. A little after the turn of the century there was a great dispute among the presbyteries of Philadelphia. Should a man stand when he prays in public or should he kneel? They almost had a split among some of the churches over the question. Forty years later, three-fourths of the churches had been taken over by modernism and unbelief.
When we begin giving attention to matters purely of form and ceremony, it is easy for Satan to come in and to lead us away from attention to the real things of the gospel. We cannot learn the truth except from the Bible. Church history does not tell us the truth, because every man might be mistaken. It is only the Bible on which we can depend for truth. Church history does not tell us how we should worship; and in God's providence He caused that we should have no evidence to speak of regarding means or methods of worship of the church for 150 years after Pentecost.
We should look into Scripture, and not to church history to learn how to worship; but we can learn much from church history about how easy it is for people to fall into certain customs; and then the custom continues a little while, and you begin to think that it is of Divine origin, and you begin to think that is the thing that is really important; and you get your eyes off the Scripture, which is the only source of knowing what is important.
I heard a story about a new officer who was appointed—according to the story which I heard—appointed to have charge of soldiers who guarded the palace of the czar. And according to the story that I had heard—which I have no reason to think that it is not true—and yet I have no absolute proof that it is true. According to this story, this officer found that in the arrangement for the placing of the soldiers around the palace for protection, one involved the standing of a guard at a certain place on the lawn; and always night and day a guard stood at that particular place; and he would stand there until he was relieved. Night and day there was always a soldier at this place.
And the officer could not figure why there were not thirty other—if there is danger of a riot or attack—other places that would be much more important to defend than this particular spot; in fact these other places were well protected, but he thought that he could use this soldier elsewhere very well; but these were the orders, and he inquired, "Why is it?" "Well, it has been always done that way." And being a studious young man, he began to investigate the records; and he found that for over two hundred years, a soldier always stood right at that right place, and they never left the place without a guard standing there.
Finally he found out that it began with the Empress Catherine, a ruler of Russia who was interested in innovations and changes and new ideas. She had received some rare shrub from a relative of hers in Southern Europe, and this would look very beautiful on the lawn; and she was afraid someone would trample over it, and it would not have a chance to grow properly; so she planted it at a certain place, and gave a very strict order that a soldier must stand right at that spot; and he must there on guard, so that nobody would carelessly trample over the shrub. Those orders were given and established; and within a few months the shrub, which was unsuited for the climate of Russia, withered away and disappeared. But for over two hundred years, a soldier was kept on guard at that spot; and nobody knew why he was there. That is a natural human tendency to think that it is anarchy unless we do the things to which we are accustomed.
We do not know why we keep on that way. 90% of the people just follow blindly whatever they have been accustomed to. I think 8% of them blindly attack whatever they have been accustomed to. There may be 2% of the people who try to think things through, and try to see what the sensible thing is; but it is an important thing in our carrying on of our civilization: to keep on the way we have had things done, unless we find a reason for change.
But when it comes to the work of Christ, it is very good for us to get an understanding. How much there is in life that purely is a matter of having been established through some accidents, through some custom; through some fitness to some situation which has now changed, and having become established, people simply are confused in it.
I personally think that one of the greatest advances that could possibly be made in the study of the Old Testament would be if there would be a system worked out—and it would not be difficult to work it out—in which one of our Latin letters would be used for each Hebrew letter; and you will always have the same understanding for the same Hebrew letter; and thus we could learn the Hebrew and study it and read it in our Latin letters. In my opinion students would learn as much Hebrew in one year as they now do in three, when they have to go through the toil of getting their eyes used to a new type of letter. It is the same sort of toil every one of us had done as a child, in getting used to the Latin letters that we commonly use. But there would be no particular use in teaching people that way, because our Hebrew Bibles are all in Hebrew letters, and our grammars and our dictionaries all use them; if you had a few thousand dollars, it would not be difficult to put all these into Latin letters; but nobody has felt the need for it. But anyone who has the money to do it seldom has interest.
I know a great professor, a learned scholar, a man who was a great expert in the Sumerian language and who wrote Sumerian, which is a language preceding the Babylonian. He wrote a standard grammar for it a few years ago; and somebody suggested to him to write it in Latin letters instead of in Hebrew letters. Then, he said "Oh that would be unscientific. That would be unscientific!" He was shocked at the idea. Actually of course it does not make any difference what kind of letters you use, provided that everybody uses them and understands them. It is purely a custom that has developed.
I heard it said that in Mexico a child can learn to read as well in a year as a child can learn in the United States in three years. I do not know how you could prove that, unless you are sure that the two particular children were of equal mentality. But I can easily imagine that it would be the case, because we have antiquated ridiculous absurd spellings in English. There is absolutely no sense to it, and yet if you try to change it, it is just about impossible.
A Christian would be very foolish to spend his lifetime trying to get the spelling system changed. You need to spend your lifetime in trying to get people to know Christ, and to be saved through Him, and to follow Him. But when we realize how accidental some of these things are that seem so important in life, why it just makes it easier for us to understand the need to do the Lord's work, if we get an understanding of this factor.
I think from church history, if you watch you will find much that will be helpful for you that way; that will help you to put your emphasis on what is biblical and what matters, without necessarily coming into sharp conflict with people who have customs that there is nothing wrong with. There is nothing particularly important about it, nothing particularly biblical about it.
Well,
we go on to d. This is a rather difficult thing to do properly, but very
helpful if you can. The purpose of studying church history is
d. To become acquainted with great men of the past and to see their points of strength and weakness. It is all too easy in the study of church history to have it simply be a series of a few names and tags to hang on them, and perhaps to think of a few men of vital importance as sort of supermen. But if there is time in certain areas of history to look in enough detail to get to know these men, to see their struggles and their uncertainty; to see how they came to make the decision they made; you might say, humanly speaking, they are hung in the balance of whether to make this decision or that; or they made one decision and then went on to be greatly used of God; while in the case of other people, they may have made the opposite decision and maybe they disappear from history; or what they did was very harmful rather than helpful.
To see it not simply as a series of events that is presented before you, but as human beings facing problems and situations and trying to solve them, this can give us an understanding in situations which we face ourselves. The principle of understanding ought to give us the importance of going to the Scripture for our answers, because that of course is where the principles come from that are vital. Somebody has said that people no longer learn anything from history except that people do not learn anything from history. I think that that is a rather extreme case. But it is true that people repeat the same mistakes over and over. They do not seem to learn from history.
I remember about 1930 I read of a story somebody told, of some Englishmen who was rather looking down on the Chinese; and he said, back 150 years—I just do not know when it was. He said that in one of the opium wars, the English had to attack Hong Kong, and he said that the Chinese had fortified Hong Kong from the side toward the water, and strongly fortified it from that side. The English ship went around, in fact, from the north where it was not fortified, and they came in; and he said, in the approach that one of the Chinese came to the shore and howled, "Wrong way! Wrong way. You are not supposed to be over there!" But they did not pay any attention to their saying that was the wrong way. They came in and they took Hong Kong fairly easily, because they came from the side where it was not defended, although a great effort has been the made to defend it from the seaside.
Well, remembering this statement I read by an Englishman in 1930, telling how foolish the Chinese were in that particular situation, I was five times as amused ten years later, when I read an article in the Saturday Evening Post telling how these British spent a hundred million dollars in fortifying Singapore so it could not be attacked from the sea. A hundred million dollars then would be worth five times as much today. So, they evidently made a tremendous effort to make Singapore absolutely impregnable from the sea; but the Japanese simply came down from the Malay peninsula and attacked from the north, where it was not much defended, and they took it without much effort.
And so, the Englishman who was laughing at the Chinese for their mistakes one hundred years ago made exactly the same mistake. It shows how history repeats itself. And I find it in running a seminary the very sad thing is that I face the problem, "What are you going to do about this problem?" I think through the whole thing very carefully; and I think the whole thing is settled, and I get it so we do not hear about it for ten years. And you forget about it. The you find the same problem coming up again, probably new to the group. But you forget what had caused it before.
Now they say we do not learn it from history, but I do not think there is any reason that we should not learn from history. We can learn from people's mistakes to try to avoid those mistakes. It is wonderful to read about Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley and some of these great men who had followed the Lord and how marvelously the Lord had used them. But we ought to take enough time to read at the same time some of their associates, and some of their friends who went ahead to serve the Lord, and did so effectively up to a certain point, and then their courage failed them.
Everybody has heard of Martin Luther, but how many people have heard of Staupitz? Staupitz was the head of the Augustinian order in Germany. Staupitz told the gospel to Luther. I do not know whether Luther got it from him or not, but he heard from two or three different sources. Luther did not invent the gospel. The gospel was in the Scripture, and the people all through the ages had been saved by the gospel. But when poor Luther was a monk, there he was trying to get the divine forgiveness for his sin; and he could not get any feeling of forgiveness. He went through all kinds of ceremonies and forms and said, "My sin, my sin, what can I do about it?" Staupitz said, "Believe in Christ! Christ bore your sins on the cross. Can't you simply trust in Him?" Staupitz showed Luther the center of the gospel; he encouraged him to study the Word; he got him the position of professor at Wittenberg University, as the expounder of the Book of Romans and other books of the Bible which so greatly increased Luther's understanding. But then it came to a point where it was necessary to stand for the truth. Staupitz, who had helped Luther, backed him up and encouraged him all along; he sent his own sister—his younger sister—to learn what she could from Luther and to be a member of the group of women who were studying there in Wittenberg. Staupitz, when he faced the final crisis, could not stand; he asked for special permission to leave the Augustinian order and to go into another order where he was not known; and he went into this order; and Luther wrote two lovely letters in which he called him, "Beloved father in Christ." Luther was terribly disappointed when the man who had led him so much failed when it came to the vital issue. Today Luther is one of the great heroes of faith, and very few people ever heard of Staupitz. Staupitz was a great and good man. I have no doubt that he was saved. But I am sure that he regrets bitterly the fact that when he came to the ultimate crisis he failed.
And to learn about people who have failed, compared with the few who have pressed forward and followed the Lord and whom God has used throughout the ages, can not only be encouraging to us as we know of those who have succeeded. In order really to know these men, you have to take a considerable time in getting the whole situation in mind, to know the flesh and bone of man rather than simply naming them. We simply cannot do that with the time available for a great many; but I do try to do it when I can, because I feel that it is very helpful.
Then
most ministers use Church History mostly for the first point of encouragement,
so we have
e. To get illustrations for Divine truths. And church history has wonderful illustrations of the truth. And you can find stories that will thrill people, encourage them, and stir them to follow the Lord with more truth. But we must remember that history does not prove what the truth is. It wonderfully illustrates, but we learn from the Bible what the truth is, and see from history how it has worked out.
I like a story about Martin Luther when he was on his way to the Diet of Worms where he was to stand before the Emperor for his faith; and probably he would be treated as John Huss had a little over one hundred years before, when he was burned at the stake. Luther went, although safe conduct was given him. While he was on the way, the imperial herald let him preach in different towns on the way; but every place they stopped, they saw signs up that the emperor had ordered that all Luther's books must be gathered together and burned; and people said, "That is what they will do to you. Now that is what they will do to you when you get there."
Many people thought that Luther must be some sort of a terrible man that he would be in such a situation. Others thought he was a wonderful man. But all of them were curious to see him and hear him. So, he went into a church, and people crowded him in the church, and in one place such a crowd came in that the whole side of the church fell off. When one side of the church fell over, the people jumped up and ran. "This man must be a preacher of the Devil, that the very church would break as soon as started to preach." And Luther howled with his great voice, "Come back here, come back here. The Devil is trying to keep you from hearing the gospel."
When
you look at the events in your life, God may be leading or Devil may be
leading. Which it is, you learn from the Word of God. Don't let circumstances
determine your life, or what you do. You judge the circumstances in the light
of the Word of God. But you can find wonderful illustrations of the truth in
history. It is wonderfully illustrative, but it does not prove.
C. Divisions of
Church History.
1. History is a continuum—breaks are not usually complete at any one point. It is easy for us to think, we find in history an empire such and such; and then there was a period of such and such. Well, these changes, these differences are very great. But the breaks between them are not sharp. They are not absolutely gradual. The changes take place often within a comparatively short time, but not instantaneously. Usually there is a little time involved. When did the Christian era begin? Well, it began, in our figuring, when our Lord Jesus reached the age of four or five. It is an arbitrary point. I do not know why the issue of age four or five is particularly an important point. They see the difference between AD and BC
Of course, there was a monk about 500 AD who tried to figure out the date of Jesus' birth, and he made a mistake; he got fairly near to it, and it is good to have a good numerical system; a lot handier than it was back in 290 AD when they said, "This was the third year of the Emperor so and so, or this was the fourth year after the earthquake." This numbering system that we have is very handy. But when did the change take place between the pre-Christian and the Christian era. Well, very few people knew when Jesus was born. Then 30 years later he began to preach, and multitudes came to hear him, but compared with the whole population of the Palestine there were hardly any.
The day when he was crucified—in God's sight it certainly was the most important day that ever occurred in the history since the fall of man. But how much of the world knew about it? How many people outside of Palestine knew about it? That obscure Galilean who some thousands of people followed, had followed him, until the very time when He was crucified there. As far as most of the world is concerned, they did not know Christianity existed until a century or two later. The time came when everybody in the Roman Empire faced it as a real force. The time came when paganism completely disappeared. But nearly 490 years went by before that time. Maybe 200 and 250 years passed before half the people of the Roman world knew even there existed such a person as Jesus. There was a change but the change is not an instantaneous thing. That is true of most changes.
History
is a continuum. Breaks are vital. There are important sources that come, and
usually changes occur over a period of time.
2. Centuries are convenient means of general division. A good many times it seems as if important developments last just about a hundred years. It is of course just because we happen to have ten fingers that we figure time by centuries, but it is a very convenient system and we are going to use this system in this class. I wish that you would make sure that you are familiar with common designations of centuries. It is a little bit confusing. The first century is the years that do not have any one in the hundred line, the years before one hundred. The second century has one at the beginning of it. We are now in the 20th century, though the years start with 19. It is a little bit confusing. So, we are going to refer to centuries and I am going to use them in our outline a good deal. Please get that clearly in mind so that if I ask you to describe events in the 14th century, you won't describe things between 1400 and 1500. The 14th century is between 1300 and 1400. The 1st century is before 100 AD and not after.
Now, some people think that history is simply a matter of memorizing a lot of dates. Remember the boy who learned the poem "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue," and then he said, "Now, I know when America was discovered." So, the next day when someone asked he said, "1583." "Where did he get that?" "In 1583, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea." When you learn dates like that, they mean absolutely nothing. And so, people go to the opposite extreme and take the attitude, "Why bother with dates?" Dates are like skeletons. They are tremendously useful if you think of them as a means of getting the general relationship of events. When you look at the middle ages, I want you to know within a hundred years when something happened; know the century in which it occurred. I do not care about your knowing 1327, but I do not want you to think that it was 1627.
When we are looking at the time of the Reformation, we are looking at a few things that I want you to know rather exactly. In the ancient church history period, I think it is good if you can know within about a third of a century when something happened. There is no great importance from our viewpoint in knowing whether the Emperor Nero died in 64, 65, 66, 67 or 68. It does not make any big difference from our viewpoint. But it makes big difference whether it was 68 or 38, Whether Christianity has had nearly 40 years to get under way after the death of Christ, or it was only 6 years. So, a third of a century is about the length of the mature active life of the average person, or at least it used to be. With our increases in health and sanitation that we enjoy, it is probably a bit longer now. But through most of history, a third of a century is the time between when a man begins to be an important factor in life until he becomes an old man, and a new generation has practically taken over. At least it used to be. So, in our ancient church history, try to remember a thing within a third of a century. And it is very important to know whether it happened in 37 AD or 137 or 237.
If
somebody asked you when the airplane was invented, if you say 1812, everybody
today will laugh. It is ridiculous to think of all that happened during the last
century without airplanes; but if you don't know whether it was 1904 or 1906 or
1908, it does not make a great big difference, if you just know that it was
earlier in this 20th century. So, I would like you to remember dates to that
extent, of a third of a century, within this course.
3. Church
history is usually divided into three major sections. This is partly
based on secular history. We see ancient church history, medieval church
history and modern church history. I say, partly based on secular history,
because in church history the modern period begins with the Reformation. In
secular history, it begins with Renaissance—maybe fifty years earlier—around
the time that printing began to flourish in Europe. But it is the same general
period. There was a change between a world in which the Roman civilization was
in control, and a world which has been overrun by an unassimilated people who
destroyed most of the civilization, and sank back into the dark ages; and then
a world in which again civilization began to come vigorously to the fore; that
is a movement in the secular history. That makes a tremendous difference in
church history. And the modern period, I think, is most important for our
understanding; but the ancient is more important than the medieval, which is
far less. The medieval is as long as the other two put together; and it is very
interesting; but from our viewpoint we will have to spend only a little time on
the medieval. I want you to understand the ancient, because it is very
important from our viewpoint.
a. Ancient church history - After the Apostolic Age. This began after the end of the New Testament. We are not dealing with the New Testament in this course. We are dealing with what happened after the New Testament. Church history began after the death of Christ and the Apostles. Practically, it began after the Apostles. We are not dealing with Paul, for instance, in this course. That is dealt with in the Apostolic history.
Ancient church history, then, begins and runs on until the Roman Empire disappeared in the West; and then the area was divided into petty little groups always fighting against each other. And instead of a situation in which nine out of ten people could read and write, you get maybe one in a hundred. It was the coming of barbarism and it lasted nearly a thousand years. Well, we will continue there a week from next Tuesday.
Church
History, in general—like History in general—divides into three parts, called
Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. When I was in seminary, Ancient Church History
was a course which they only had once a week. The professor assigned us a lot
of reading, and the lecture was one hour a week on Ancient Church History. In
Medieval Church History, we met two hours a week; and in Modern Church History
we met two I think. And in Medieval Church History, we learned the names of
endless writers, thinkers and church leaders through the middle ages—a great
deal of material which, if it had been well-presented, would have been
tremendously interesting. But it was very dully presented; and in addition to
that, it had comparatively little importance for us today. So we give
comparatively little attention to medieval history, not because it isn't
interesting—if it's well handled, anything is interesting.
b. Medieval church history - After the fall of Rome. Rome fell in 476, which is a convenient dividing line between ancient and medieval church history. For those who do not have a U.S. History background, just between 450 and 500 is quite satisfactory. But that is the time when the Roman Empire broke up into little sectors warring with each other, between 450 and 600—more particularly 450 and 500. Before that you have, on the whole, a large peaceful area in which it is possible for Christianity to spread and to develop in a comparatively normal fashion. And then you have the modern period, a situation in many ways similar to the ancient period. That period we will look at next year. In between you have Medieval Church history—a thousand years which is not of such great importance to church history, though it is an extremely interesting period.
Ancient church history and modern church history are of tremendous importance; and medieval church history—unless you're going to specialize in it—is of comparatively little interest to us. The reason for that is that our Protestant heritage, at least, comes almost directly from the ancient period and the modern period, and the medieval is largely a sideline. It moved off in a different direction and then we get back on the main line.
Of
course if you're going to deal with Roman Catholicism—particularly when your
mission work is Roman Catholic—you need to know a lot more; at least if you're
dealing with priests and bishops, you need to know a lot more about the middle
ages than the ordinary Protestant needs to; but even then the modern period is
far more important, and the ancient also, than the age in between.
c. Modern church history - After the Reformation. 1453 was the downfall of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. In 1453 it was conquered by the Turks, and that opened up all of Eastern Europe to the Turks and made tremendous changes. Shortly after that, printing was established. That is one of the great features of modern church history, compared with all previous history, the existence of printing.
But 1492 was the discovery of America; and just 25 years after the discovery of America is the year when Luther nailed his theses on the Church door, and thus began the reformation in 1517; that is the beginning of modern church history. But modern history begins at either 1492 or 1493, about that period. So that to tie up Luther with these others is helpful.
1564 is the date when John Calvin died; and Martin Luther's work and John Calvin's work together were the great foundation of the Reformation. And while the Reformation didn't stop in 1564, the great persecution went from when Luther nailed his theses in 1517 to when John Calvin died in 1564.
So
that you see Church History is naturally divided into the period up to about
500, up to say 476. And then a thousand years from that till around 1500, and
then the 400 years up to the present.
D. Remarks about Dates. I don't think it's true so much anymore, but in the old days it used to be that many people got the impression that history consisted of a collection of dates, and the important thing was that they know that this happened in 1492 and this in 1756, and this in 1743, and this in 1917, and so on. They got a great many meaningless figures combined in their minds and spent their time memorizing those. That is not our purpose here. I'm not apt to hold you responsible for many precise dates. On the other hand it's easy to go to the opposite extreme and to say dates don't matter at all, and that would be utterly wrong.
Supposing that you were talking about what happened one day when Abraham Lincoln and George Washington had a big argument about some matter of American Government. Well, anyone who was brought up in this country would immediately see how absurd that would be, because George Washington was dead at least ten years before Abraham Lincoln was born. To have an idea of the general time-relationship of important occurrences is very important in understanding events. And so I'm not the least bit interested in most dates—in your knowing whether this happened in 1752 or 1748 or 1746 or 1712—but I am interested that you know that it was 17 something rather than 15 or 19 something. It depends on the period we're dealing with how great the exactness is which we want on dates. But I want you to know the general relationships, or the event in history is rather meaningless. And so I think that you should know within the half-century an event of any importance, within the half-century. Now of course you get into times when you have many, many important things happening in a brief period; then we try to get it more exactly. When we get where we run over a long period, we will not be so interested in getting so near to the exact date.
Here are four dates which are of importance. I don't know that they're important right now, because they come at the end of the period rather than at the beginning, but they divide off this period. 1453 was the downfall of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. In 1453 it was conquered by the Turks; and that opened up all of Eastern Europe to the Turks, and made tremendous changes. Shortly after that, printing was established. That is one of the great features of modern church history, compared with all previous history—the existence in history of printing. In 1492, something occurred which anyone born in the U.S. probably will immediately know. I don't know if in South America 1492 is stressed quite so much; I guess you do too, because Columbus, I think, the very next year went to South America; and what he discovered in 1492 was almost halfway between North and South America, not much more one than the other.
But 1492 was the discovery of America; and just 25 years after the discovery of America is the year when Luther nailed his theses on the church door. And thus began the Reformation in 1517; that is the beginning of modern church history.
And then I'm going to give you just one other date 1564. 1564 is the date when John Calvin died, and Martin Luther's work and John Calvin's work together were the great foundation of the Reformation. And while the Reformation didn't stop in 1564 the great persecution went from when Luther nailed his theses in 1517 to when John Calvin died in 1564. So that you see Church History is naturally divided into the period up to about 500, up to say 476. And then a thousand years from that till around 1500, and then the 400 years up to the present.
Now have these general dates in mind. It's quite important for the general main section of church history. And from our viewpoint, modern church history is by far the most important. I almost wish that we had a whole extra year to devote to it, there are so many important things that we can hardly touch in one year. Next in order of importance is Ancient Church History, because it is the foundation; it is the beginning; it is tremendously important, though its importance is often greatly over-estimated. We do not get our faith from what happened in ancient church history; we get it from the Bible. But it is of great importance. And then the medieval period is of tremendous interest, though of less importance for us. So much for D, then, Remarks About Dates. Try to have an idea of most of the events in Ancient Church History within the half century, to have a general idea of what happened this half century, and that half century.
It
is necessary in our present day that every one of you know the whole condition
of the world today, as it is since 1909. After 1909 conditions were very
different. And the people who were at the same stage of their development in
1909 that you are now, they are either dead or very aged. You are a new
generation, and 50 years from now very few of you will be important figures in
the world if our Lord tarries; there will be a new generation. So if you get
mixed up, what happened 50 years ago, what happens now, and 50 years from now,
it is rather important; but if you know anything that happened ten years ago or
what will happen ten years from now, it's probably tremendously important. So
try to have a general idea of your periods.
E. What is History? If we're going to talk about church history, we ought to at least have some idea of what we mean by history. What is history? It is sometimes said that "prophecy is history written in advance." And if by that you mean that in prophecy you learn about some events that are going to take place in the future before they occur, then certainly prophecy is history written in advance. But if by that statement you mean that prophecy is really a presentation of what we commonly call history, then it is not true. If you have a prophecy presented 200 years or 300 years before, and someone wrote a history that was just like that prophecy, that is an utterly untrue statement. History is quite different from prophecy. What do we mean by history?
Well, suppose I tell you, this morning, down in South Philadelphia in a very poor house, in a family the parents of which could hardly read and write, there was a young boy born this morning at 3 o'clock. One of you will say, yes, and in a similar house in San Francisco there was one at 3:15 and a similar house in N.Y. there was one at 3:30, and in a very wealthy family down in Texas there was one at 3:45. You could go on through the day and tell, name all the people who were born today and it wouldn't be history at all but events, things that happened but it wouldn't be history.
But out of all the people who were born today, one of them, perhaps from a very wealthy family, perhaps from a very poor family, perhaps from a family of great culture, perhaps from a family of no culture at all, one of them 50 years from now, if our Lord tarries, may be making a visit to China and be received by the head of the Chinese government, give him all sorts of great praise and acclaim, telling the Chinese what we're going to do to them in the next few years, and so on, and if that happens, history books will be greatly interested in where he was born and when and what his background was and all about him.
History is not an account simply of events but is an account of events that have an effect on great numbers of people. It is an account of events that change the course of life, not just for one or two individuals but for a great number. And so history is greatly interested in either individuals who greatly affect others, or in that which is typical which has affected a number of individuals rather than just a few. And history is interested not just in a series of events, but how these came to happen. What was their relationship, how did one affect the other?
As I say, if you wrote an account of what happened in 1959, and started and told everything that happened January 1, January 2, that would not be history. It would be picking out those events which affected great numbers of people and which had great influence upon the world. Those events might not have been the least bit recognized at the time. You might have had no idea they were important.
About 1910, I believe it was, there was a Russian who came into a Basle in Switzerland and asked for a room, and paid very small sum for this room; he had a tin plate and a little cheap knife & fork and cooked his own meals to save money in this little room there; he lived there, and he paid. He had a great deal of correspondence with other people, but nobody paid much attention to him. And in 1945 I think it was—'45, '48, something like that—the owner of this house died; and immediately the director of the leading museum in Basle, Switzerland, went to the people who inherited the house; and he said, "Would you sell this spoon and fork and knife and the plate that this Russian used 40 years ago?" People had tried to get these, but the owner never would part with them; and he got them for maybe a hundred dollars—I don't know—the price was many times what they were worth; but he managed. He hadn't left more than five minutes when a representative of the Russian government wanted to buy them. But they were already sold. And the Russian government gave art works which were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Basle Museum, in order to get that knife and spoon and tin plate, because Lenin had used them.
Nobody knew Lenin was of any importance in 1910, except his little group of friends. But today his body is embalmed and preserved; and thousands of people every year walk past it to revere it; and anything connected with him now has become history and tremendously important, because he was important in how he affected the Russian people and people all around the world.
So you can't write history when it's happening. You can't tell how important it is, you may guess that something is of great importance, of course. You may be right; you may be wrong. You have to look back; you have to take the different events; you have to try to see what's important. Any history of the U. S. written fifty years ago will be very, very different from the history of the same years written today. Because fifty years ago they thought: who were the officers, when was the battle fought, all these matters were the most important; and today the tendency is to forget most of those details and ask about the things that affected large numbers of people, their social life, their relation to each other, matters that fifty years ago they didn't bother to think about, yet were of tremendous importance because they affected great numbers.
Now that's history in general. But we're not in this course interested in history in general, except as it is necessary for our interest in special history here. But to have a concept of what we mean by history is very important, and maybe I'll take a second to mention another thing about it.
History—as anybody will write a history—will not simply go straight on from year to year. You can't write history that way. You want to write a history of the world during the last 20 years. You won't start in and tell what happened every day, all over the world, or any part. You will take one country and write it up for a ways; then you'll take another country. Because you'll want to see the interrelation, you'll want to deal with the things that are closely related together and then wee their effect on other things that were closely related. And so when you take up OT history, you find that in the book of Kings, you deal with the kings of Israel for 96 years and then you come back and deal with Judah for maybe 50 years; and you start at different places with them as you're trying to deal with each of the units and see what is inter-related in it, and also the interrelations to the other kings.
Well, that's complicated, in understanding history. You have to take various things and trace them through as units, yet you want to see their relationship to each other.
History then is not just a series of events. It is not a chronicle, but it is a study of that which has been of importance in affecting the lives of great numbers of people. Now you can have a history of science. In that case you're interested not in the idea that somebody had about science, somebody followed up; nor even are you greatly interested in the great discoveries made by a man who was way ahead of his time, made a great discovery, but then wrote them up, buried them; and nobody saw them till they'd all been discovered over again.
You're interested in the science that has affected other science; in how knowledge proceeded, in what was important in advancing science, in the history of science.
In
church history, we find interesting important figures who had little influence
on others; and it is very interesting to study them at length; but we felt that
we should pay little attention to them, because they're not so vital for church
history, though they may be very important. So much for what is history. Then
if we're going to deal with church history, the next question logically is
F. What is the Church? What is the Church? And that, properly, comes under another department, but it's basic to church history. We find in Matthew 16:18, Jesus said, "I say unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." Which church does he mean? There are 200 churches in Philadelphia. Which one does he mean when he says my church? Well, we Protestants believe that no particular church organization is the church.
We believe that the church, of which Jesus speaks here, is the total body of those who are saved through Christ, past, present, and future; whatever church they be in, whatever their relationship with others, those who believe on Christ constitute the church. "I will build my church," Jesus said. And in the book of Ephesians, Paul says, in Ephesians 5, verses 25ff, "Christ loved the church and gave himself for it." Which church? Is it one of the hundreds of churches in Philadelphia? Is it one of the hundreds of denominations in the world? What is it? "He loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not a spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." According to this description, there isn't a church in the world that fits it; there's not one of them holy and without blemish; there's not one of them that doesn't have many spots and wrinkles. The church is the whole body of the redeemed, which the Lord Jesus has saved from sin; and He is sanctifying, is cleansing, is changing, so that the time will come when he can say of this body, that it is a glorious church without spot or wrinkle. That is the church.
Well, now it's pretty hard to write a history of this church, naturally; because we can't see that, we don't know who's in it and who isn't in it. We can see, but we cannot be certain; but that is the church. So for the purpose of church history, we are using the word "church" in a broader sense. We mean, when we talk about church history now, were not talking about that kind of a church that is in heaven; we're talking about the part on earth at any particular time. And then also we are interested in all those who believe in Christ as Savior; but we are interested in something somewhat larger than that. We are interested in the organization to which they belong. We are interested in the people who claim to be Christians, whether they are real Christians or not. So we are interested in this, the Professing Church.
Of course we're more interested in the real church, but we're interested in the professing church. We're interested in all the branches of the professing church. We are interested though, particularly, in those who have interacted upon one another in such a way as to contribute to the development of the situation which we face today, as our part in church history. The organizations which we face, how did they come to be this way? Where did they come from? And we are interested in the organizations through the ages which have been prominently identified as Christian organizations; or if not so prominent, have had a great importance in contributing to the situation that we find today. That's what we mean by church history. That's what we mean by the Church. That is the church that we are interested in for this course; not the church invisible, except incidentally—as far as this course is concerned—though in general we're much more interested in that than the other.
It is the church that has been manifested on earth here; it is those organizations which have claimed to be the Christian church, or a branch of it; and particularly those which have contributed to the development of the situation which you see today. And since today most churches talk a great deal about the primitive church—the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the church that comes from the time of the apostles, and carries out the situation as it was in ancient times. And most other churches claim to be a NT church, a primitive church. We are greatly interested in what the church was like in those early days. We are interested in the ancient church.
When John Calvin was a young man, assisting another pastor in Geneva, the directors of Geneva said that Farel brought a young French student to be his assistant; and that Farel and the young Frenchman came to a meeting to be counselors. One day they asked Farel to take part in a debate with three Roman Catholic leaders—three Protestant leaders of which Farel was one—and three R.C. leaders. And they were going to debate what was the true church, and whether they should be in the Roman fold, or whether they were right in being out. And they went to the debate, and Farel asked his young assistant to go along to carry some books, and so the young Frenchman went along.
And they got there and immediately the Roman Catholics began quoting: why you should believe in trans-substantiation? Look at what St. Augustine said; look at what St. Jerome said; look at all those great leaders in the early churches, what they said about it. You should believe that Peter is the Pope: look at what these leaders say; they began to quote from the Latin from great leaders in ancient church and history; and Farel and the other two were great students of the Bible; and they were presenting the great cases from the Bible—which is the important case—and Calvin was also very much at home in that field, very interested in it; but here the Romanists were putting emphasis on the early church fathers and what they said; and the young Frenchman began to get more and more restless and finally he turned to Farel and said, "Say, could I say a few words?" So Farel said to the group, "I have a young Frenchman here with me. He has some ideas on this matter. Would you be willing to hear him?" They said, "All right."
So Calvin got up and said, "The speaker has just said that St. Augustine said so-and-so." And he quoted the words. "But," he said, "it would have been helpful if he had also mentioned that right in the next paragraph, St. Augustine said this," and he quoted what he said in the next paragraph. And then he said, "so-and-so quoted St. Jerome, said so-and-so, but I wish he had mentioned the fact that two pages later he said so-and-so, and he had the quotations right in his head from all these things the church fathers—by fathers we mean the leaders in the early church—and he showed from this field that the Protestants were right, and were more in line with the attitude of the early church, than the Romanists. Now that was when Calvin first came into attention; before long they were talking about Calvin and Farel instead of about Farel and his young assistant.
Now we of course—most of us—do not enter as much into that particular type of debate; but it stresses the importance which there is in knowing something about the early church history period, the attitude of the early church, and how it developed.
So
then this is what we mean by what is the church. The next head I have down is
G. What is Church History. Having discussed what history is, and what the church is, perhaps this would not be necessary, but I'll say a word or two about it. What is church history? Church History is not the history of the political life of the world, not the scientific development, nor of the type of political organization which it had. But these points had great effect upon church history, they interact with church history; and so we must touch upon many of them which are important. Others which didn't affect church history much we may not touch on at all, though they might be even of greater importance in those fields than the ones we will touch on.
But Church History is the account of how a little group of men in Palestine who believed in Christ increased in number and spread until the whole Roman Empire became nominally Christian: How did it spread? What they did to do it? What difficulties they faced? What ideas were developed in the course of this? And what type of organization they used? And what changes occurred in it? Their general set-up, who were their great men? And so on.
Church History is the account of that which is important in the development of the New Testament Church. That is, in the rise of groups or organizations which claim to be the church or parts of the church; or the developments of ideas which have an important influence on the various parts of the Christian church today. Now the Roman Catholic Church says, we are the true church, and if a man is not in the true church he is lost. The Bible Presbyterian Church makes no claim to be the true church—nor does any true Presbyterian—but its Constitution begins: "This is a branch of the church of Christ."
No true church claims we are the only Christians, because we recognize that Jesus Christ today is honored and revered by individuals in many different groups; but we say we are one of the branches, and we recognize the existence of an organism related to Him—which is His body—which is not confined to any one denomination; but each group can do its best to become more like what the Bible says the true Church ought to be.
But we're interested in all these groups, particularly in those which have an effect on the situation as we know it today as far as church history is concerned. If we dealt with all the events and looked at all the people who believed in Christ, we would be here 300 years in conference. If we dealt with all the events connected with the leaders of important sections of the Christian church, we'd spend the next 20 years. We have to make a selection. We have to do our best to take that which is most vital.
Now that's not the difficulty in church history, because our material is comparatively limited. When you get to Modern Church History, it's extremely vital because there's so much material that you just haven't time to cover it all; but in Ancient Church History there are many very important things we just don't know about, so we have to take what we do have and try to interpret that.
[Mr. Myers question] What is the church? The church is all who are saved through Christ. Who is saved through Christ? All those for whom he died. Did he die for Abel? If he didn't, why did Abel make a sacrifice? A lamb representing the Lord Jesus Christ. Certainly all those who are saved or who ever have been saved, or ever will be saved, are in a very true sense part of the church. But for the purposes of our course, we have one course in OT, and another course in gospel history, and another course in apostolic history. Apostolic history is a very, very important part of church history. But we have a separate course in apostolic history. So here we only look at it very briefly, because we feel that that portion of the history of the church is not for us so vital and we only touch incidentally on that phase of Bible history. We will touch on apostolic history one of these days, because you just can't skip it; but we will deal principally with events after the Apostolic Age.
But Mr. Myers is very right in pointing out the fact that no one else was ever saved in a different way than we are; we're all saved because of Christ's death; nobody ever gets saved differently from that. So in a very true sense they are a part of the church. But for the purpose of this course, we're interested in the various organizations which have claimed to be Christian, not in those who are not in one of these organizations; except where we find individuals who, though not connected with an organization claim to have had, by their life or writing, considerable influence on church history. He will be a factor in church history that we will naturally want to mention if we can find time.
Well,
this was Introduction. Whenever you start history, you need to know something
about what was before. You can't just make a sharp line, because there's always
something that precedes, and we're not going into much of what preceded the
beginning of the Christian Church, but we are interested in what was there
before it began.
All
through Ancient Church History, the Roman Empire is of tremendous importance.
So we want to say a few things about the Roman Empire as general introduction
and background as we study the church all through the ancient period. We're not
particularly interested in the beginning; we're interested in that, but we're
interested in what follows. So
A. The Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had established peace, and an attitude toward law that permitted individual enterprise and allowed the Christian to spread his belief in a way that would have been very difficult in most other times in history. There was a language—the Greek language and the Greek culture—which would be understood and engaged with, by some people at least, in every town.
And then there was Judaism which had spread throughout the
empire. Very early, the Romans gave the Jews a special privilege that they
wouldn't have to worship Jupiter. So long as the Jews would obey the law, they
could worship their own God. The Jews worshipped in synagogues. The apostles
could present their new teaching in the synagogues, and it gave them a method
of approach and an entry for the spread of the gospel.
1. Its Importance (in Church History). In the providence of God, Christ came in the "fullness of time." Now what is meant by the fullness of time? Well, there probably are many things involved. But one thing that is involved in the fullness of time is that God had prepared a situation in which Christianity could spread much more rapidly than could have been the case, humanly speaking, 50 years or 100 years or 150 years before. And except in its most northern section—I guess we'd better say—the Roman Empire had conquered most of Europe, what is Europe today; the southern perhaps two-thirds of Europe, and a good big section of Asia, and of north Africa, had been conquered by the Roman Empire.
And this meant that Christianity, though it came from what the Romans considered a very obscure, backwoods section of the Empire, had immediate access into all portions of the Empire; which it would not have if it had been divided up—like Europe was in the middle ages—into a lot of little sections fighting against each other, in which it was very difficult to go from one region to the other.
Nine years ago I stood in Jerusalem, in Arab Jerusalem, and there I saw people walking back and forth on the street: policemen, soldiers, everything; here I saw little children playing over here, and there was a big barbed wire barrier; and there was one block of ruins; the other side of the block that nobody dared enter because he'd be shot; and the other side was more barbed wire; and then you could look across and dimly see buildings on the other side; and you could see Jewish people and policemen walking back and forth. You could see little children playing there too. They were just a block away from each other; you could get little sounds of their calling from time to time. But if you were to go across there, you would have to fly to Cypress, and then fly back again—250 miles each way—to get one block across there.
Well, now suppose that you knew about Christ, and you wanted to tell people about it; and you were in Arab Jerusalem, or in Jewish Jerusalem, the chances of your being able to fly to Cypress and fly back again, to get into the other, would not be very great. Particularly if you belong to either one of those countries, they probably wouldn't even let you into the other.
I know, as of 1950, if you went to Israel they wouldn't even let you into the Arab section or the Arab countries; unless they saw the proper visa on your passport, you were excluded. Well, we have borders like that in a few places in the world today. During the middle ages, we had a great many of them. And in ancient times, previous to the time of the Roman Empire, there were a great many; and it is difficult for ideas to move across such borders.
Linguistic scholars today go into sections of Germany, or France, and they find that the people in a certain section pronounce words in a certain way, and on the other side they pronounce it in a different way; they will find that a certain sound may be pronounced "ye" on one side; it may be "je" on the other side. This sound may occur in hundreds of words, but if you go through the country everybody says ye until you come to a certain place and then beyond that everybody says je, though they're talking the same language. And why does this change come right at this place? You trace back and you may find that from 1200 to 1450 AD, there was a border at that place; and people couldn't go across easily; and the result was that the two languages developed differently; this is the same language, but the people talking it on the two sides developed differently, because there wasn't much relationship with each other. And then say in 1450 the two were united and have been one country ever since, but 500 years later you still have a difference in the manner of speaking produced by that border.
Well, the Roman Empire obliterated borders. The Roman Empire conquered nation after nation and reduced it to the one large empire, in which it was possible to travel from one section to the other with much less difficulty than you travel from one section to the other in most of Europe today. I've seen people lined up—hundreds of them in a line—to try to get a chance to go 30 miles away in Europe, from one country to another to visit a relative just across the line; and they've had to spend half a day, a day, sometimes two or three days, waiting to get that permission. And there are places today in Europe where you can't cross at all. The Roman Empire reduced it to one empire in which ideas could spread; it was easy for people to move about, and that was a tremendous help in the spread of Christianity.
Now
I want to look at a number of different ways in which the Roman Empire was of
advantage to Christianity but first I'm going to say a little more about the
Roman Empire.
2. How It Came into Being. God prepared the situation in which Christianity entered the world and flourished because of the Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire was not something which came into being overnight. It was not that somebody got an idea and they started out and established it; but over the course of many centuries its situation developed. There had been the four great conquerors that conquered tremendous areas; but the Roman Empire was different, and this had much to do with the possibility of the spread of Christianity.
Rome was a little city down in Italy; a little town there, fighting with other towns; and being a little bit better fighter, it gradually spread over the territory. But after Rome had spread over a bit of territory, there came a situation within the city of Rome which resulted in the development of a degree of democracy much greater than that in most of the great conquering forces in the world history.
Powerful families grew up, and they determined to see that they had their proper rights; and in very early days, this institution based on powerful families had been established. So when the Roman Empire became a force, it wasn't just two or three powerful men, but it was the nation in which there had been developed certain habits, certain viewpoints, certain traditions, which had much to do with the situation in which Christianity later took root. Well, we have to stop at this point.
We were looking at A, The Roman Empire, the world into which Christianity came. There were of course thousands of different factors, as there are in the world at all times. But there are three of these which are of outstanding importance in relation to the preparation of the world for the coming of Christianity. And God had caused that these factors should be such as to advance the introduction and spread of Christianity. And these 3 are all of great importance. They are: The Roman Empire, Hellenism and Judaism. We will look at them individually.
We are now looking at the Roman Empire. I mention the Roman Empire first because it is the most conspicuous of the three during the ancient church period. It is the one that was a factor that you couldn't help reckoning with because you saw evidences of it on every hand; and it is very important that we have some understanding of what it was and what it meant. And so under the Roman Empire I had 1, Its Importance. The matter of what rights people had and what they could do and couldn't do, all that relates to the question of the Roman Empire, so it's very important. It becomes one of the great antagonists of Christianity, and eventually does its best to destroy Christianity; and the conquest by Christianity of the Roman Empire is one of the big features of ancient church history, though not the most important, but one of the great features.
And the Roman Empire by its presence made it possible to travel without great difficulty, and it opened up a large area. Most of what was then considered the civilized world was available for people to travel, with comparatively little difficulty, to spread Christianity. And in fact, there was much trading going from one end of the empire to the other; and so as some of the merchants became Christians, it was easily spread through their activity. And so the Roman Empire is a very important factor in the world into which Christian came. That's number 1, under A, it's importance.
Then
2, How it came into being. Now this is a subject we could speak a month about.
And if we did, those of you who have had quite a bit of history would probably
find it extremely interesting, and think it was a very worthwhile month; while
those of you who have not had much history, would be rather confused. I do not
find it necessary, in church history, to have a full understanding of the Roman
Empire. I want to just point out—to make five statements under this heading—how
it came into being, which I think are good for you to know even if you remember
nothing more about it, than the five statements that I make. And I will give
some explanation about the five which may not mean a great deal to those of you
who know nothing about the Roman Empire but may mean a great deal to those who
have some background. So don't worry too much if you don't have the background
to understand what I'm bringing out, under this head, but get the five points.
a. It was a
Gradual Growth.
That is very important about the Roman Empire. It was a gradual growth. Not
that a man got great power all of a sudden, conquered a lot of nations and set
up a kingdom. Nothing like that. For hundreds of years the development had been
proceeding which resulted in the situation into which the apostles came. It was
the result of a long and gradual growth. And this is important because it would
affect what the apostles had to face. They were not facing simply a
dictatorship in which absolute ruthless power conditioned everything they did.
It was a very different situation than one in Hitler's Germany, or Stalin's
Russia, or Mao Tse Tung's China.
b. In Rome there had developed a constitutional system with a large measure of individual liberty. Most of the then-civilized world was part of the Roman Empire, but the Roman Empire was not simply the result of one man's arbitrary action. As far back as 500 BC, approximately, half a millennium before the time of Christ, the Roman people had driven out their king, and they had established a system of government in which two men directed the administrative control of the city; these were two consuls who ruled jointly and who were elected for only one year. Well, now that's very, very different from the dictatorships we know. These two consuls ruled one year, they were followed by two others who were elected to succeed them.
There's a situation in which you have a large amount of freedom as early as 500 BC. There was already a certain measure of democracy in Rome. It was not simply ruled by Caesars. The Roman Republic begins about 500 BC. By the time of Christ, the Roman Republic had been overcome, and it became an empire; but much of the situation of the Republic remains. So I'm pointing out a long tradition of democracy and law. The consul had tremendous power for a year, and then a new one was elected.
Now that's the sort of system that would run most countries into the ground, because there would be not enough continual power to establish them; but there was a group of patricians who elected the Consuls, and they were tremendously interested in everything that happened; and gradually the consuls divided up a good bit of their power between them; and then also very early, centuries before the time of Christ, a large group of people in Rome who had no voice in the government—the Plebeians as they were called—revolted against the Patricians who were running the government; and a compromise was made which left the power in the hands of the Patricians, but gave the Plebeians the power of electing officers which they called Tribunes; these Tribunes did not run the government, but they could veto anything the consul said. They could stop any law from being promulgated; they could prevent any one of the people from being punished, by the consul. They had a veto power which made their power tremendous in the Roman situation.
Well,
through many centuries there had grown up a situation in which the Roman people
understood that every man had many definite rights, and the legal right to do
certain things; and no officer of the state could interfere with him; and if he
was interfered with by the state officials, there were other officials who had
the right to investigate, and stop anything done against him; a tradition of
individual rights, and of individual liberty and the right of a large number of
people to participate in the government as it developed in Rome. There was a
Constitutional system—not an arbitrary rule by a dictator—and a large measure
of individual liberty was involved in it. Then another factor developed in Rome
which isn't so important when Christianity began but becomes more important
later.
c. A gradual extension of the rights of Roman citizenship to conquered peoples. This began very early; when Rome, the little city in Italy, conquered another city, they would give the rights of citizenship to certain of the people they conquered; and gradually the rights of Roman citizenship were extended to other people.
When they would bring slaves into Rome, after a time these slaves might be freed by their master; and some of them might be granted the rights of Roman citizenship; and thus gradually Roman citizenship came to be not a racial matter, which people of a certain heredity had, but something that could be extended; and gradually it was extended, until before the time of Constantine, practically everybody in the Roman Empire was a citizen of Rome. This extended beyond Italy. But this is an important principle here. Along with this,
d. There was a concentration of power in experienced hands. Now that is the difference between the Roman system and that of many of the Greek cities. The Greek cities thought they had democratic control before the Romans did; and they had it perhaps much more widely, perhaps there was much more democracy; but in many of the Greek cities, democracy had become a situation in which a lot of people who knew nothing about a situation would make the decisions about it. And that's a tremendous danger in any democracy. And that's one reason why Greece had very easily been conquered by Rome. There was no centrally strong power to resist it.
But in Rome very early there developed an institution of the Senate, something which is almost unique; and if we had something like it, that would be a very wonderful thing. We do not have anything like the Roman Senate. The Roman Senate, which developed very early, soon developed into an organization in which the men who had had high positions like Consul became permanent members. It was a permanent body made up of the people of leadership and experience in Rome. And the final authority for some centuries had rested with the Roman Senate.
The result was that a Consul might be a very able man, but when it came to making decisions, or of changing laws, he had the advice, and in fact the control, of a group older and more experienced than himself. These were men who were constantly studying how to advance the welfare of the Roman people and of the Roman State. In this country, when a man becomes prominent and well enough liked to become a president, we elect him president of the U.S. for four years or eight years; and after he's president—if he retires or he is defeated for reelection—he's just a has-been; he may travel around the country criticizing the man who is in power, or he may go off somewhere and write memoirs; but he's wasted as far as the country is concerned.
I only know of one president in our history who was really a valuable asset to the nation after his presidency ended, and that was John Quincy Adams. John Quincy Adams did far more good for the country after he was president than before. He just went into the House of Representatives as an ordinary Congressman; he remained there for many years, but with his influence, his personality, his clear-thinking, and his long experience, he was a great force in the up-building the U.S. there for many years. But I know of no other president who has been an important factor in American life after he ceases to be president.
Now
in Rome, with the Senate arrangement, instead of one party being out of power,
and these men just having no influence to speak of except to criticize, all the
former experienced men, who had done good work, were in the Senate, constantly
giving the best of their advice, their ideas, helping in the decision for the
welfare of the nation. And this system of the Roman Senate resulted in the
concentration of power in the hands of experienced men; this made a
comparatively democratic nation, yet it had the power to keep expanding and
enlarging and extending, as it did for many centuries, until eventually all the
world came to be in its hands.
e. The Tensions, which were largely the result of extremely rapid conquest, eventually resulted in concentration of ultimate power in one head. This happened between 250 and 200 BC Now that is what ended the Roman Republic, and produced the Empire. But the Empire still had many of the factors of the Republic very important in it.
About 250 BC or 300 BC Rome held most of Italy in its power, and Rome was ruled by the Senate; the officers were temporary, the Senate really controlled. The Senate was a deliberative body such as the world has never seen before or since. But then Rome was faced with the threat of being defeated by other great powers, about 300 or 250 BC; they were faced by these, and they had to either be overcome by them or overcome them. And for many decades they were almost constantly at war. But in the end the Romans, by virtue of the clear thinking and careful planning of the Roman Senate; the devotion to duty of the Roman individual; and the good generalship that emerged; in a comparatively short time the city of Rome found itself not merely in control of Italy but in control of an area perhaps ten times as big as Italy. And it was too much to absorb all at once.
And so they had to immediately proceed to govern all this big territory; and in doing it, this introduced all sorts of confusion into their own situation. They had soldiers, originally citizen-soldiers, but by this time they had something of a standing army. And as they had more territory to police, naturally they had to have more soldiers. But with all these large territories around, it was too much for the Roman Senate to handle. The Senate continued to determine great matters of war and peace, policies in relation to them, but former consuls were sent out to govern these provinces; and so in each province you had a former consul or a former tribune—some former officer—who was practically absolute monarch of his province. He went into the province; he ruled the province; nobody had anything to say about what he did; but after he got through, when he came back to Rome, he might be accused of malfeasance in office, malpractice, as many of them were, and severely punished. So that acted as a check on him; but while he was at it, he was supreme there. And with all this land conquered, tremendous wealth began to flow into Rome; and the old ideas of Rome began to disappear, in the face of many new ideas that came in, great influxes of new people.
And after Rome had conquered all this big territory, a situation developed which would take us many weeks to detail; but we can briefly say a situation developed, which resulted in a certain amount of anarchy, or civil war, in Rome; and eventually a situation where people got so tired of the fighting between factions that they were just happy to have someone take over and take control.
Julius Caesar was a man who all his life served for Rome, but then he was assassinated; and after his death the warring parties ended with the one man victorious; he was Julius Caesar's great-nephew, named Octavius, and he is the founder of the Roman Empire.
Well, now when Octavius took over the Roman Empire, he kept alive all the forms of the Republic; he tried to make it out that the Republic was going along just as it had been before, but actually he had the army in his possession; he had the military power. More and more he controlled. They called him commander. The word for commander was imperator, and from that our word emperor comes.
Well, emperor came to mean something it never had meant at first. At first it just meant the commanding officer of the army; but it was because he was commanding officer of the army that he could say anything he wanted, and the Senate couldn't resist; so that he became the complete dictator. That was the establishment of the Roman Empire; but it was established in such a way that you have this long tradition of democratic control; the development of individuals who were devoted to the Roman state. This constitutional idea was the rights of Roman citizens. Well established, this idea of law, and it was established in Rome and gradually extended to the provinces; which were, for the time being, under the absolute control of temporary officers sent there originally by the Senate, but now sent by the Roman legions.
Now for those of you who know little about Rome, some of the points I've mentioned may not be clear. But if you have these five points I've mentioned, I think you have something of what will be helpful in understanding the progress of Christianity in the Empire.
We
won't dare take more time on that, but will go on to a brief mention of
3. The nature of
the Roman Empire.
Two important elements:
a. Strong
Central Power.
b. A Great Tradition of Law and of Personal Liberty. These two elements exist side by side. The Emperor came to have the last word on anything with which he wished to deal. One man with millions of people; he cannot relate himself to most of them in any direct way. Something comes before him, he can do anything he wants to; but 99% of that which affects most of the people is the result of a system which the emperor takes over and inherits and directs; a system in which there is this strong tradition of the rights of the individual; of the legal processes to be carried out, and of the personal liberty to which every Roman citizen is entitled; and this is gradually extended to others. Of course, I don't mean complete personal liberty; I mean within limits. But it was altogether different from the system in the communistic realm in which every individual is supposed to be completely subject to the state. There was no such idea here. The individual had a responsibility to the state, but the state had a responsibility to the individual. But this now had been, you might say, upset by the emperor's tremendous power, but that power did not directly affect many people, so that the presence of this very strong central power is something to be reckoned with.
In Athens at one time, the people would come together and vote; many of them knew nothing about the thing under consideration at all; a clever speech would move them one way or the other, and the vote would go this way or that way, you couldn't predict; and it's one reason for the downfall of Athens.
In
Rome's central power, even under the emperor, most of the important things were
decided by the careful deliberation of the Senate, made up of experienced
people; and there was a stability there, not a quick unreasoning change in one
direction or another, that subjects of a pure democracy are very, very apt to
fall into. Well, so much for 3, then, its nature. Now, I want to give you a
rapid survey of the history of the Western empire, of the western Roman Empire;
I guess you can say of the Roman Empire, don't need to say Western because
we're not going to survey beyond the point where it divides.
4. A rapid
survey of the history of the Roman Empire. I want to mention five lines of
power and give a brief summary of what happened in the Roman Empire during each
of them.
a. The Julian Line (30 BC-68 AD). As you see, that is a period lacking only 2 years of being a whole century. Now you have a century of emperors which were the first emperors; and these emperors were important in the first start of Christianity; and they are in any books and stories about the early Christian developments, they run parallel to Acts.
I don't know how many people today realize that Julius Caesar is responsible for the present calendar which we have. It shows that he was not merely a man of war, but that like Napoleon, after he gained control he proceeded to carry through some very excellent reforms. And one of them was that he took the old Egyptian calendar of 360 days and he introduced it into Rome, replacing the lunar calendar. Julius Caesar corrected the Egyptian calendar of 360 days, and made it 365 days; and he put in a leap year, which made it substantially accurate. He introduced this system, and it has been followed with slight modifications right up to the present day. They took one of the months and they lengthened it a little in his honor; they added an extra day to it and called it July; and then when Augustus became emperor, they took another month, added a day to it in his honor, and called it August after him. So we have July and August after Julius Caesar and Augustus; but both of them were able rulers who built up the country, and certainly had a beneficent effect on the whole world which Rome ruled.
We
don't know much about the Julian line's relationship to Christianity, because
Christianity was pretty largely unknown then, except among the Christians. It
was very small, hardly known; and yet it is worthwhile to know a little bit
about the personality of these five men. We will occasionally refer to them in
our consideration of this first century. So I want to say a few words about
each of them. I want you to write down their names and their dates. I'm not
asking you to learn the dates of any of them, but to know at least the half
century in which they occur. The first of them is
(1). Augustus (30 BC-14 AD). Now I told you that Octavius was the first Emperor. Well, the Senate gave him the name of Augustus—August Leader—they gave him that title; and after he became emperor, he was usually referred to as Augustus. He was the first Roman Emperor. He reigned from 30 BC to 14 A. D. Thus you see, he is the man who was called Caesar in Matthew, where it says that Caesar sent out a command that all the world was to be taxed. He was a great-nephew of Julius Caesar; the name Caesar was attached to all these men; it wasn't actually their name. The Julian line, you see, comes from the name Julius Caesar too. Now Augustus, for 44 years after he came into power was the controlling force in Rome; he kept all the Republican institutions going. They elected consuls; they elected all the different officers. He called himself a tribune, and as a Tribune he had a right to annul any law; but he had control over the army, and nobody else dared annul his law unless he gave permission. He is generally considered as a wise ruler, a man who did much for the welfare of the Roman Empire, including all the provinces. He selected the governors of the provinces and seems to have tried faithfully to find the best one for the work. I've never heard criticism of Augustus as a man or as a ruler.
Well,
Augustus died without children. That is, there were some descendants, but no
one who was a direct child or grand-child living, who would be the natural one
to succeed him. The son—a step-son, he married a woman who had had a child
before she married him—and this man succeeded him, a man who is mentioned, I
believe, by name in the Bible, named Tiberius.
(2). Tiberius (14-37 AD). He reigned from 14 to 37; thus, you see, he too had a fairly long reign, 23 years. Tiberius was an able administrator; he started out as an excellent ruler; did much to give stability to Rome, stability to the empire; he selected good officers for the directors of the provinces; and they were supposed of course to bring in taxes, bring in support to Rome. One of them brought in an unusually large taxation from his province, and instead of getting the praise from Tiberius, he got criticism. Tiberius said, "I sent you to shear my sheep, not to skin them," and it shows the attitude he had.
He was very wise and reasonable and gentle in his administration during his early years. But he did not bother to keep up the pretense of democratic government as a governor. Many of the institutions continued as they were, but everybody recognized that what Tiberius said was law, and that was that; and if somebody didn't, Tiberius would kill him. That was the end of those individuals. His absolute power was recognized; but he held, and I think you could say during his whole term, he tried to be a good governor.
During his latter years, he had an officer he put great confidence in who turned against him; and he killed this man, and the men who stood with him; and it rather soured him; and then he went into big displays, spent a great amount of money, giving praise to himself, spending great sums to please himself. He had some sorrow in his family, and he moved away from Rome, lived in big palaces in southern Italy for a time. In his latter years he was very, very unpopular. People detested him in his latter years but actually he had been a very good governor.
He was the ruler when Christ was crucified. He had never heard of Christ; he knew very little about Palestine. He probably had appointed Pontius Pilate personally, the administrator of this area. But he probably knew practically nothing about that section of the Empire.
Now
Tiberius, who reigned 23 years, was succeeded by a man who only reigned 4
years. But this man in some ways is more important than Tiberius.
(3). Caligula (37-41 AD). Caligula was a young man, a very attractive young man; everybody liked him. Tiberius adopted him; he was the great grandson of Augustus. He reigned from 37 to 41. When Caligula began to reign, everybody liked him, thought he was a very fine man and were very fond of him; and some think this went to his head. Others think he was injured in his head in a fall or something. There are even a few who say he was poisoned—that they gave him some poison—nobody knows what happened; but very soon after he became emperor, he got all sorts of delusions of grandeur; he appointed his horse as a consul; he decided he was a god. This shows how far things went. He would go and talk to the statues of the other gods. He sent a great big statue of himself—a colossal statue—ordered it to be put up in the Jerusalem Temple; and the Jewish people just flung themselves on the road—lay there—so that this statue could not come to the Temple. The officers would have had to kill so many hundreds of people to get it through that they just quit; and before they could get word from him what to do, he had been killed. But it just shows how in his four years what could happen when a man in a position like that went berserk.
Some people suggest that pictures of the anti-Christ are drawn from knowledge of Caligula. I don't think that's true, though some suggest it. Some say he's the one who is predicted as the anti-Christ. Some suggest that the abomination of desolation to come to the Temple refers to his statue to be brought in. Of course, it didn't actually get there. But Caligula reigned four years before he was killed by his soldiers. And then a very queer thing happened which showed how—with all this wonderful organization of the Roman Empire—they handled this power concentrated in one man.
The
imperial guard got so disgusted, they ransacked the palace; and they came
across a nephew of Tiberius—an uncle of Caligula, a man 50 years of age—who was
hiding behind a chair. With Caligula killed, he didn't know what might happen
to him. He was hiding in terror; and it seems that one of the guards just
thought it would be a good joke to grab this fellow, who was scared for his
life, and pull him up and say, "Look, here's the emperor." So they
pulled out this man—this uncle of the dead Caligula, a man now 50 years old,
who had always been merely tolerated by his family as a man physically and
mentally inferior, weak in body and in character, everybody had looked down on
him, but the guards were just in such a mood—and they grabbed him and said,
"Here's the emperor, here's the emperor!" so the next emperor is
(4). Claudius (41-54 AD). And the palace became a mass of plots and intrigues; and there were all sorts of chaos within the center of the government, but here's the strange thing.
This man, inferior in mind and body, always looked down on, who amounted to nothing, being suddenly placed in this tremendous position of authority, entered into it seriously, and he did the best he could to be a good emperor. And for a period of 13 years, we had real advances made in the improvement of Rome and the empire. He actually proved to be a good emperor; and Claudius, though he drove the Jews from Rome as one of his acts, he probably was himself influenced by some of those in the palace.
Actually
he was, on the whole, a good emperor who did his best; and his best proved to
be pretty good. He was not a great man like Augustus or Tiberius, but he wasn't
a bad man like Caligula. But when Claudius died, in AD 54, the last of his
wives, Agrippina—you don't need to bother with her name unless you're
particularly interested in Roman history, and then you'll probably know it—she
was able to push aside the son of Claudius, and gain the throne for her own
son, as Claudius' successor.
(5). Nero (54-68). The man then who succeeded Claudius was Nero. His mother had been the wife of the emperor; he had every advantage in the court; she had entrusted his education to the philosopher Seneca; and for the first five years of his reign, his rule was wise and successful, 54-58. Well eventually, Nero got more and more interested in having big banquets, and in carousing, and in making everybody look up to him and think how wonderful he was, and in getting rid of anybody who displeased him in any way; so eventually his government degenerated. But the government of the empire as a whole was going on; the established Roman system was going on. Nero is not interested in it much, so on the whole the empire is still well-managed under Nero.
In 68, Nero killed himself; but he would have been killed if he hadn't killed himself, for they were coming for him. But Nero ended the Julian line; so in the next year and a half there were three generals, one after the other: Galba, Otho, and Vitellius—names I'm not expecting any of you to remember.
These
generals came in, each with his army, to try to put a stop to conditions Nero
had produced; but no one of them was strong enough to take over the empire by
force and hold it; the result was that Galba, being a pretty good man, held it
for a brief time; and then Otho took it from him; and then Vitellius overcame
him and took it from him; and after a year and a half, people were pretty
disgusted with this, and anxious to have stability again; and then Vespasian,
who had been general in charge of the army trying to put down the Jewish
Rebellion, marched with his army to Rome; he overcame Vitellius; and when he
did so, the Roman people were ready to feel that peace and stability were more
important than just getting the best kind of an emperor possible; and Vespasian
was a pretty good man anyway. So he established
b. The
Flavian line (69-96). We have little knowledge of the Church
from 60-l00 AD, the forty years from Paul's first trial in Rome through the
rest of the century, which includes the rule of the Flavians. Acts gives us our
only early knowledge.
(1). Vespasian
(69-79).
Vespasian was Emperor when Titus destroyed Jerusalem in 70. He held power for
the rest of his life, as did his son, who only lived two years after he became
emperor, and then his son's brother Domitian.
(2). Titus
(79-81). Titus
was one of the finest men in history outside of Christianity, but he only
reigned two years.
(3). Domitian (81-96). Domitian was a man of sullen and bitter character, universally disliked; he was not a monster by any means, but a man of rather mean type. He was the second great persecutor of the church. He was a wicked man.
And
with the death of the wicked emperor Domitian, we have a complete break; but
the break was solved by starting an entirely different line, and the peaceful
progress that for the next century gave Rome as a fine government as any nation
has ever had in history. That's the period we call
c. The Nerva-Antonines (96-193). We'll give a little more detail about them later; but for the present, it's a transition from one to another of the main divisions of Church History.
This was a dynasty of seven Emperors, which is distinguished in that each emperor (except the last) chose his successor based on ability, and then adopted that man. This break from the usual rule of inherited succession within the family resulted in a remarkable period of prosperity and continuity. The practice was broken by the last Emperor, who resumed the previous practice with predictable results.
After the death of Domitian who had been emperor for 15 years, people were disgusted with the way he had reigned; nobody desired to get somebody from his family as next ruler, and the Senate chose a good man, Nerva, who was a member of the Roman Senate. He started a new system. Nerva picked out a man who seemed to him to be ideally suited to be good emperor. And then he adopted him as his son, though he was nearly as old as himself. And the result was that this man whom he adopted became the next emperor.
This
method of choosing a successor continued for the next five Emperors—almost a
full century—until Marcus Aurelius abandoned the practice and chose his own
son, Commodius, who was a bad person.
5. Advantages to
Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire. We have all
heard how Christianity conquered the mighty Roman Empire. We have also heard
the Roman Empire spoken of as the great persecuting power; that is true, and we
will look at that later. But at this moment, I want you to get an understanding
of the great advantages which Christianity received from the existence of the
Roman Empire—advantages which, in the providence of God, is it certain that He
planned to have available. And the first of these,
(1). Comparative Peace and Safety. Jesus told about a man who was on his way down to Jericho from Jerusalem, and on the way he fell among thieves. And that, in the previous century, was no uncommon thing, for a man to be assailed by brigands. But if you want to travel extensively and to spread new ideas, it can be a tremendous handicap, to be subject to danger that you cannot keep yourself and your property safe; and there have been many periods in the world's history when travel has been extremely difficult unless one has an armed retinue to protect oneself.
Now in the whole of Europe, there never had been before, and perhaps has never been since, a time of such comparative peace and safety as the Roman Empire in Domitian's time. It is interesting when you visit Palestine to see at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee a high hill, going up to several hundred feet high, and on three sides you had to go up quite a steep slope; you can walk up it all right, but it makes you out of breath if you go at all fast. On a fourth side it is almost sheer. And on this fourth side you see caves, large caves, in the side of the cliff; and to get to these caves there are little bits of paths that a person could go up by himself, but to get to them is a little difficult.
Now in the time of Christ—as there had been for centuries before—there were bandits that lived in those caves, and they would make their way down the path and go out, waylay traffic, attack caravans. They would sometimes enter a walled town and seize property; and they were a great danger for travelers unless they had an armed guard. There were brigands in many parts of Palestine, as there had been off and on through the centuries.
When the Romans took over, they determined to make safety on the roads, and safety for the people; and the Roman soldiers, the heavily armed, able fighters that the Roman soldiers were, had that as a part of their duty, to establish peace and safety. Yes? [student: Did the Romans care about people's safety in the conquered lands?] That's a good question. I'm not sure I can give the answer. But I can say this: that at the time of the Roman Republic, the Senate had the desire to forward the well-being of all its citizens; and for a period of two or three centuries, the Senate acted on the whole very wisely, with the well-being of all Roman citizens as its objective. They were attacking everything that threatened the well-being of Roman citizens, including those who were given to trade in other countries. Now Augustus, the first of the emperors, seems to have been a man who had pretty much that idea. He was determined first to get himself all-powerful and he succeeded; but after he became all-powerful, his endeavors were devoted to the welfare of the Roman citizens in general.
And Tiberius was pretty much the same, at least till toward the end of his reign. Caligula was a mad man, but he only reigned a few years. And Claudius, a man very inferior in most ways, made a good emperor, who again sought the welfare of the people on the whole, though with much less ability than Tiberius.
And then Nero, as a young man, got all this power, and it went to his head; and he made himself one of the worst monsters the world has ever seen; but he had the background of all these able rulers, and he took over the power. And then Vespasian again was a man of high character who in general carried out the orders of the Roman State, and so on. Titus was one of the finest men in history outside of Christianity, but he only reigned two years. And then Domitian was a man of sullen and bitter character, universally disliked, but not a monster by any means, but a man of rather mean type. But at his death the Antonines were men of very high character, all but the very last one.
So you see, when you have power which is built up by men of solid character, and then a monster gets control of it, he's got the means of being a tremendous menace and injury to everybody. But this is a historical fact which is of tremendous importance, for the spread of Christianity: that the Roman Empire introduced a period of peace and safety within its borders, such as the world had never seen before, and perhaps has not seen since. So starting with Augustus, we speak of the Augustan Age, an age of culture, peace, refinement, civilization—the Age of Augustus, the Roman Emperor. And in Palestine, the peace and safety which the Romans introduced had very odd effects, which continue to this day. One thing, the temporary effect of course, was that peace and safety was established, which continued as long as the Romans were in power; but it stopped as soon as there was no longer a strong power there.
But this peace and safety—I mentioned about the horns of Hattin down at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee, where you see those cliffs there, with those caves. When the Roman soldiers came into Palestine, and decided to put an end to bandits, they found the bandits going and getting into these caves, where you could have 30 or 40 bandits in a cave; and one man on this narrow little pass coming up to it could hold off a whole army very easily. They had no gunpowder of course in those days; only one man could go up the pass at a time. He had to watch pretty close where he stepped; one man up there could easily keep him from getting up there, and they were absolutely safe against ordinary measures; but the Romans were never content with ordinary measures. They found extraordinary measures. So the Romans went up to the top of cliffs from the backside; they got up to the top, they made a scaffolding, they put ropes on both sides of the scaffolding; on the scaffolding they would have five or ten Roman soldiers stand, heavily armed; and they would drop the scaffolding down little by little until it would stand right in front of the entrance of the cave; and there in front of the entrance to the cave, five heavily armed Roman soldiers could put an end to 30 or 40 bandits without the advantages of sword or armor, without the training that the Roman soldiers had. The result was that these bandits were dragged out from the cave and killed, and banditry was pretty well ended in Palestine through the Roman activity.
I'm going to mention a great disadvantage which came to us in our day from this Roman effort to establish peace and safety, and that was this: 75 years ago when excavation began in Palestine, in fact up until I think it was 1890, but it was quite a time before the benefits were realized. Up until 1890 when people wanted to excavate in Palestine, they'd go to a town which might have a name like Dothan, or the name of some Biblical place, and they would go to this place and would start digging. A modern town which had the same name as the place in the Bible. They'd start to excavate. And they'd excavate and would find the remains of people who had lived during this century and last century, perhaps a little going on back until they'd get to Roman days, and it would come to an end; nothing more there. If you wanted to learn about ancient times, OT times, there was nothing there at all.
And then a great English excavator from Egypt went there in 1890—Sir Flinders Petrie, went there—and he noticed this: that very often, near some town that had the name of some famous ancient city, you would look up, one, two, or three miles away, and you would see a hill standing there, which they called "hill-of-beans," or something like that—nobody thought of it as of any importance—there was this hill over there. But he would go to that hill and start excavating, and he would find there the remains of an OT town on top of that hill. And the reason is that in OT times, they had to build up the city on top of a hill to be safe from attack, and put a wall around it; and gradually as the people died, houses were knocked down; new ones built on top of them; the hill grew and grew and grew; and every morning they opened the gates, would go down the hill to their work, at night they'd come back up, get in behind the walls.
And then, when the Romans made peace and safety, they didn't need the walls. And you didn't need to climb the hill; you could just sleep out in the field if you wanted, and you were safe. And the result was the people got tired of walking up there to the town; they just moved the town down to the plain, and took its name with them. So that very seldom will you find a town in Palestine which has existed continuously at its present site since OT times. You find many of them, hundreds of them, perhaps, which have existed within three or four miles of the place; but in Roman days, most of them moved down onto the plain.
And this bears striking witness to what the Romans did in establishing peace and safety. It made it possible, made it easy, for Paul to go up to Damascus, looking for the Christians to destroy; and then himself being converted, go down to Arabia and spend three years studying the Word of God; come back up there; go about through the Roman Empire. He occasionally had peril from robbers and that sort of thing, but compared with what it would have been 100 years before, it was nothing. The establishment of peace and safety by the Roman Emperor was something that did much for the spread of Christianity.
Then
the second great advantage of the Roman Empire:
(2). Lack of Borders. And any of you who have spent your whole life in the United States, cannot realize what this means; but to anyone who lived in Europe through the last 40 years, it would be a mighty visible thing. I've seen people lined up, hundreds of them in line, standing hour after hour in order to get permission to go thirty miles away to visit relatives who were on the other side of the border.
I was in a consulate in Germany in 1929; I was getting permission to go to one of the eastern countries; and a German came in and wanted to go and visit his cousin who lived in that country over there; but the country after the First World War had been cut off and given to another country. Well, this man wanted to go and visit them, so he came to the consulate. "All right, fill out this form of 150 questions. All about yourself, your past history, why you want to go and everything," and you've got to fill it out in the language of the country, of which he didn't know a word. Well, he said," I don't understand that language; I don't know a word of it." "Well, if it's not properly filled out, we can't give you any permission." "Well, couldn't you help me?" "No, I'm too busy. You take it off and hire somebody. Put your questions into our language." And that was the way he was treated.
In 1927, when I went over, you had to pay ten dollars visa fee for every country of Europe, you visit; for 8 countries that's $80 visa fees. Well, they put that off, but right then it was a tremendous fee. I wanted to go from Berlin down to Vienna; it was a straight road, right straight through; it only took a few hours; but in order to do it, you had to go through Czechoslovakia, which meant you had to get a visa to go through there; and you had to go to a Czechish Consulate and fill out forms and pay to get a Czechish visa to cross the country going from one part of Germany to a part of the German eastern area.
Well, those are just examples of the difficulty that border-crossing made, where you have small countries. It was a constant nuisance, particularly just after any war. I think the hardest border to cross is that, probably, into the U.S. As this is one of the biggest countries, those who come to live here and travel through from one section to another don't notice it; but people who come here from other countries often have a much harder time getting here than we have getting into other countries.
The
Romans had conquered most of Europe and a good portion of Asia; and you could
travel from one end to the other of that with little inconvenience from borders
or officials or interference of any sort; and that was a tremendous help to the
spread of Christianity. So the lack of borders is something that, humanly
speaking, Christianity could not have spread as far as it did in less than
twice the amount of time, if it were not for this which the Roman Empire did.
And
(3). Roads. Now the Romans may originally have had a military purpose; but the result, whatever the purpose, is that they built good roads going from Rome to every part of the Empire. So the Roman soldiers had a good road on which to make a quick trip to any place where they were needed. And these roads were available for everybody. And the Roman roads made it possible to travel through the Empire and help the early spread of Christianity, not only the coming of the missionaries, but people carrying on commerce could travel without borders, with peace and safety, with good roads. They could travel and did travel. Commerce was extensive all through the Empire, without the hindrances that were in it before, hundreds of years of before; and when people engaged in commerce or were converted to Christianity, they spread the word as they went, even though they were not full-time missionaries.
So
there were these 3 very great advantages for Christianity from the existence of
the Roman Empire. Now
6. Disadvantages
to Christianity of the Existence of the Roman Empire. And the
disadvantages I think I would put under two main heads,
a. The Great
Importance of the Personality of the Emperor. Now that's true to an extent
under any sort of government. You can't get away from it; the individual in
power has much importance in what happens, But here you have a situation where
the man in power might be favorable to Christianity, or he might be
unfavorable. And he had the power, if he chose, to arbitrarily put advantages
in its way or disadvantages in its way. It was this tremendous power in his
hand that could be a terrible disadvantage to Christianity. Later of course it
became a great advantage, when the emperor became Christian, an advantage to
its spread. But at this point it was a great disadvantage; one never knew what
the emperor was going to do, like Nero, in persecuting the Christians as
scapegoats for himself.
b. The Development of Official Opposition. We find no evidence of this in the book of Acts, the development of official opposition to Christianity. In the book of Acts, we find much evidence of the advantage of the Roman Empire. Remember, when Paul was speaking at the Temple and a mob came to attack him? He would have been killed, but that the Roman soldiers who were there to keep the peace, saw him and seized him; they rescued him from the mob, and saved his life on that occasion. Then, when the Roman soldiers were told by a nephew of Paul that a group of men had been planning to kill him, they took him by night to a place some distance away where they had a strong force, where he would be perfectly safe. They did not do that because of Paul; they did it because of the desire to maintain safety and prevent the murder of anybody. It was the peace and safety which the Roman Empire had instituted.
And when Paul thought he wasn't getting a fair deal from his judges, he appealed to Caesar. And they said, "You have appealed to Caesar; you can go," and they sent him to Rome. Now that doesn't mean that Nero personally judged him; he probably never heard of him. But one of Nero's officials, whose duty was to see that justice was done, examined the case. And it is an illustration of the fact that here was an order they established for peace and safety.
You remember when Paul was at Ephesus, the merchants of Ephesus were aroused against the Christians; the people were no longer buying the statues of Diana the way they used to, and giving much money to them, and so on, they said. They aroused all this hatred against the Christians, and then they came to the great stadium, and they had a tremendous time where all the people declared how wicked the Christians were and all that; and then you remember the Town Clerk, the particular name of the leading Roman official in Ephesus; he came before the people and told them, he said, "If there's anything wrong, the courts are open to you, you can bring charges." But, he says, for this day's uproar our city is in danger of being seriously judged. And so saying, he dismissed the assembly. He said to them, you better watch out, the courts are open, if there's something wrong with these people you can bring charges; but when you have a public meeting of riot and confusion and yelling like this, the Romans may interfere.
And it's pretty clear evidence of how the Roman Empire in the time of the book of Acts was a force which the Christians utilized for protection of themselves, for ease of traveling. It was a tremendous advantage as far as the book of Acts goes, and it contributes to the spread of Christianity.
Now this point, I said, was the development of official opposition to Christianity, and this was something that is hard to understand just how it came about. There probably were accidental features involved in it. We will look at it more in detail later; but for the present I will say: as a result of these accidental features, before the end of the first century, the Roman Empire had an official position that Christianity was wrong. That was the attitude they took.
With the Jews, the Romans couldn't understand the Jews; they didn't have statues; they didn't have any particular thing that was similar to other gods; the Romans thought these people had a queer sort of religion; but that's their religion, we don't want to interfere with it. The Jews had rights throughout the Roman Empire which other people did not have, because the Romans recognized they had a peculiar religion; and they were allowed to carry on the forms of their religion, and to be true to their religion, so long as it did not interfere with the welfare of the Roman State.
When the Christians began to come forward, the Romans at first took them as simply a group of Jews, and Judaism was a permitted religion. It wasn't until later in the First Century that it was illegal, that it was not permitted in the empire. Even when it was illegal, the empire did not set about constantly to eradicate Christianity. The persecution was sporadic; but the legal attitude which became established by the end of the first century was that it was fundamentally illegal to be Christian. The Roman Empire, as they conquered nations, encouraged them to continue their own religion, as they felt that these religions made for stability and for peace; and in fact, when they conquered a country they sent the statue of the god of that country to Rome; they put it in one of their leading temples in Rome, so as to show how all the gods of all these nations unite with the Roman gods. So the Christians were not interfered with at all at first.
But then, as the Romans began to find that the Christians would not sacrifice to the gods; wouldn't take part in the regular ceremonies which opened their assemblies; and which were connected with all official observances; they began to say these people are rank atheists; they have nothing solid to give them a reason for being good, for maintaining stability in the Empire; and occasionally they'd find a Christian who would declare, "I don't follow Caesar; I follow God, I follow Christ." Their beliefs were seen as disloyal to the Roman Empire; and so there developed an official attitude of hostility to Christianity—an official attitude—and this was a tremendous disadvantage to Christianity.
But this shows the attitude of the Roman emperors: they were tolerant toward all religions; and if people wanted to believe in Christ as god, they were glad enough to put up a statue to Christ, and to make Him one of the gods along with Jupiter and Apollo and a hundred others. Sure, worship Christ, and worship the rest of them. They were very, very tolerant.
Christianity was not persecuted by the Roman Empire because the Romans were intolerant; it was persecuted because the Christians were intolerant. It was the refusal of the Christians to compromise which led to the persecution of the Christians. The Christians did not merely insist that their religion was important, and that Christ was God; they insisted the other gods didn't even exist, and they refused to give even the emperor himself a place as the equal of Christ. It was the intolerance of Christianity, its refusal to compromise, which led to its persecution by the proud Roman emperors, who permitted all sorts of religions to have free rein in their Empire.
But it took quite a while for Christianity to be singled out. It was many decades after the death of Christ before such an attitude had risen. The attitude came before 70 AD; because, as a matter of fact, when Jerusalem fell—during that brief period—the Romans distinguished between Jews and Christians. And the Christians were at an advantage there. They were not under the same disadvantage the Jews were at that particular time. I think they gradually came to see that Christianity wasn't Judaism. And if it wasn't Judaism, what rights did it have? Judaism was an official religion. Christianity was a new upstart, sort of. Should it be permitted, or not? Well, they found the Christians wouldn't worship their gods; while the people from most of the other countries would claim their own gods were best, but they worshipped the Roman gods too. So gradually this attitude developed. But we'll look at that in more detail later.
Yes? [student: We've been talking in terms of recognizing each other's religion. Were most people in that day of a religious nature or were there some...] There was a lot of materialism; there was a great deal of it. For instance Cicero in Rome—in the time of Julius Caesar—Cicero had no belief in any of their Roman gods; he thought they were all a lot of nonsense, superstition. Yet one of the leading positions in the Roman government involved the reading of the auguries which the gods sent to tell you whether it was propitious to do things or not. Cicero was very anxious for that position—as Augur of the State—though he didn't believe in any of the gods. There was quite a bit of materialism then. Not in the rank and file as much, but great numbers of the educated people were.
Well, people have ideas of the cruelty and the brutality of the Roman Empire; and I think this idea is altogether true. But it's not quite right, in a way, to blame it specifically on the Roman Empire. All nations, apart from Christianity are brutal, and cruel. And it was a fact that the Romans had more power, more ability to be brutal. The Roman soldiers were doubtless very, very brutal. And the laws were enforced with tortures, in many cases extremely brutal.
But that's not a specific feature of the Roman Empire. It was true of all nations in that day. Rome having this much power, when this power turned against Christianity, then that brutality became a factor to be reckoned with, very definitely.
So
much then for A, The Roman Empire.
B. Hellenism. There were three great factors in the world into which Christianity came. The second one I give now—Hellenism—and Hellenism is just as important in the spread of the Gospel as the Roman Empire, but for different reasons. And these reasons are less obvious than the reasons given under the Roman Empire. They don't enter so much into specific points of activity in the history, and so it will not be necessary to go so much into detail. It is greatly important, but not necessary for this particular course, to have more than just a general understanding of what it is.
What
do we mean by Hellenism? We mean the commerce and influence of the Greek
language, literature, culture, civilization, etc. So naturally then under B, we
put
1. The
Achievements of Greece And under that, we'll simply say:
a. Culture, Science, Art, Literature, etc. So we're not going into detail. But to mention that at about 350-400 BC in Greece you had a level of culture and civilization which has probably not been equaled anywhere else in the world.
You
had in Athens, a town of about 25,000 people, which would be a pretty small one
today. You had great thinkers, great writers, great architects, more in number
and importance than you would find in any city of Greece today, however large.
There was a situation in Greece which developed tremendous mental ability; and
in science, art, culture, all these various fields, the development in Greece
in the classical period was tremendous. But that's not directly connected with
us, and so we get on to its relation to Christianity. But at this point I want
to mention
b. Failure in Government. It's the Greek lack of achievement in this regard. They were excellent in all these other fields, but in government they failed. The Greeks failed. They had a system which promoted general freedom in the cities; it had much to do with the development of their culture and ability; but it resulted eventually in their cities fighting one another until they destroyed each other's power; they never had any unity against a common enemy, and in the end they all became slaves of Rome. But they conquered their conquerors, in a way—we shall look at it tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock.
Now we were looking yesterday at B, Hellenism; and under Hellenism we noticed 1, The Achievements of Greece. We barely mentioned small a. Its achievements were so great, but they were in the realm of science, art, literature, culture in general, beyond anything the world has ever seen in this regard. And then under achievements we mentioned a lack of achievement, b, Failure in government; and some of the Greek cities destroyed others, and eventually they all were in such a situation that their strength became very weak; and they might have disappeared altogether if it had not been that the one who conquered them, Philip of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great, a little before 300 BC, although barbarians from the viewpoint of the Greeks, they were themselves greatly attracted by Greek culture; and so they conquered the Greek cities and made them a part of their empire; they themselves took over Greek culture and thought of themselves as disseminators of Greek culture.
And
so the Greek culture—while the Greeks were defeated—the Greek culture persisted
because the people who conquered them were not anxious to destroy their
culture; they were much interested and wanted to be thought of themselves as
possessing Greek culture, And so that leads us to
2. The Spread of Greek Civilization and Language: The Hellenistic Age. This came with Alexander the Great's conquest of tremendous areas of the world, while the Romans were still a comparatively unknown nation in the west. Alexander the Great conquered the mighty Persian Empire; he conquered a tremendous area, though his empire didn't hold together; after his death it broke into four parts, yet all four were led by people who shared his own passion for Greek culture.
The result was that through the conquest of Alexander the Great, Greek culture spread all over the eastern Mediterranean; and even to the borders of India, for he conquered a section of India. And all of this territory—consisting of many different nations with many different literatures, languages, religions, different types of outlook on life—all of them were conquered by Alexander the Great; they were held by his successors, and in them their soldiers established colonies under the protection of their arms. Greek merchants came all through them; Greek schools were established in them; and centers of Greek life and civilization were established all through the whole eastern section of Europe and the western section of Asia.
And so it is usually called the Hellenistic Age—from about 300 BC until the time of Christ—the Hellenistic Age, because it was a time when Greek culture spread over this whole area. In the New Testament, we read about the Decapolis, which is a Greek word meaning "ten cities." We read that Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee over into the region of Decapolis, this region of the ten cities. And we read that when he got over there, he found a demoniac with whom he deals; and the people were irritated because of that; the demons in the demoniac had asked that they be permitted to go into that herd of swine. Well, what was a herd of swine doing in Palestine if they were Jews who could not eat pork? They were in the region of the Decapolis, the region of the ten cities with Greek culture; ten Hellenistic cities, which were mostly over across the Jordan in that area. They were centers of Greek culture; they had the Greek theaters; they had all sorts or types of Greek life; and they had their swine, and that is why the swine were there in this place.
And there were Greek cities scattered all through the east. Gaza was the old Philistine city at the time of Samson. In Gaza at the time of Christ, they had schools of Greek philosophy that were so good that students from Athens came to Gaza to study Athenian philosophy; and this shows how Greek culture was disseminated and spread through that whole area.
Well,
that is a tremendous fact of the world into which Christianity came; and of
course the Greek language was understood everywhere. They used the Greek
language for their commerce; many of the schools used the Greek language. It
became, in the main, the language of government in this whole section; and of
course that's why the Septuagint [The OT translated] was written, in Greek.
3. Advantages to
Christianity.
The spread of Hellenistic culture all through the eastern world provided
certain great advantages to Christianity, coming to this world just at this
time. The first of these,
a. The Existence of a Common Language widely understood. Every time the apostles moved to a new section, they didn't have to learn a new language. Many, many people understood Greek. The cultured, educated people understood Greek. And the common huckster on the street might understand Greek, because Greek was the language of the common people as well as the language of the cultured. While there would be many people who wouldn't understand it, there would be enough who understood it, to make it a basis for rapid dissemination of new ideas, all through that portion of the empire.
In fact, we shouldn't just say that portion of the empire, because even in Rome—at this time—in Rome perhaps half the people in Rome, maybe more, were slaves. And of these slaves, perhaps three-fourths of them were Greek. And a great many slaves had been freed, and had become Roman citizens; so the Greek language was widely understood in Rome; the big schools in Rome were in Greek, and Paul's Epistle to the Romans was not in Latin, it was in Greek,
And the Christian church in Rome, for the first two centuries, was a Greek-speaking church, even though Latin was the official language of the Romans; Greek was widely understood in Rome, and in fact people looked up to those who spoke in Greek, because it was the language of culture and refinement and learning.
And
so a common language, widely understood, was a tremendous advantage to the
spread of Christianity. But not as important, but very important, was the fact
that this language.
b. This Language was Uniquely Fitted for the Expression of Complex and Sublime Ideas. That is the second advantage. The OT was written to give people ideas through a glass darkly, of what God was going to do in the future; and consequently the great central doctrines of our religion are all clearly taught in the OT The great Christological teachings of the NT are suggested and anticipated. Yet there is not that necessary precision of expression, that full expression of minute ideas in the OT which is needed for the New. And for the NT there is perhaps one of the most precise languages the world has ever seen; one of the most beautiful languages and one of the most precise languages; and one of the best adapted for science and for careful expression of philosophical and scientific subjects.
Of course this was doubtless partly due to the great cultural development of the Greek people. The language, in fact, of the time of the great philosophers, say 350-400 BC, was an extremely complex language—so complex that it would be very difficult for people outside to learn it well enough to understand the complicated ideas expressed in it. But the Greek language, while retaining much of its excellence as a medium for thought, had since then become greatly simplified. Many of its more complex forms had disappeared by this time.
Writers at the time of Christ, all through the Roman world, were trying to imitate the Greek style of 300 years before—a style which nobody talked in any more—but they were writing in that style, trying to write in that style, that is. While the people on the street talked in a simplified form of it. The apostles were the first, as far as we know, to take the common language of the street, as used in the days of Christ, and to make that language a literary language, by using it for the expression of sublime and complicated ideas.
It used to be thought that NT Greek was a sort of a barbaric Greek, with a mixture of Hebrew. That was what people thought until 50 years ago, when they began to discover in Egypt what they called non-literary papyri; these papyri had written on them ordinary business documents, common letters, and that sort of thing; and it was found they were written in the same kind of Greek that we have in the NT, of course without the literary excellence; and the Greek writers of that day did not use that language; they tried to use an artificial language, to imitate the great language of 300 years earlier. But the NT developed the common language of the people into a great literary language. And so this language was available for them, a language with wonderful possibilities for clear, careful expression of complicated thoughts; but a language which had become sufficiently simplified that it could be understood by the people in all parts of the empire. It was not quite as complex as it had been a few hundred years earlier.
So
that is the second advantage of this language—that it was uniquely fitted for
the expression of complex and subtle ideas. And the third advantage,
c. Partly as a Result of Greek Philosophy, There was a Widespread Attitude of Skepticism Regarding Paganism and of Longing for Something Better. There was a general feeling in many parts of the empire of dissatisfaction with the viewpoint on life which they had; and I've put this as partly Greek Philosophy, because certainly it was not entirely due to this. A good part of it was due to the increase in material welfare, leading many people to see that material welfare wasn't everything; there was a need for something better. A great many people just gave themselves over to all kinds of sexual indulgence and wild libertinism; but an occasional one would find himself utterly satiated with that sort of thing and disgusted with it; and in the Pagan cults he would not find anything to satisfy him when he wanted to turn away from it; and there was a feeling there must be something better.
So
there was a preparation for the Gospel; and to some extent this was partly the
result of Greek philosophy, partly the result of other causes. Now those are
the advantages of Hellenism to Christianity, there also were certain
disadvantages.
4. Disadvantages
to Christianity.
The first of these:
a. Many, particularly of the Lower Classes, were greatly attached to the Greek gods. Now the Romans, when they first came into contact with the Greeks, had come to the conclusion that their gods were the same as these Greek gods, though with different names. And so the Greek god, Zeus, their leading god, the Romans considered to be the same as their leading god, Jupiter. Doubtless the two do go back to the same original tradition. Well, the Romans permitted people in every land to hold their own religion, with this exception; they must recognize Jupiter as the leading god. They could worship their own god, but they must give Jupiter a prominent place along with it, in their worship. And there were many people who were attached to Jupiter, and Mercury, and Venus and the other gods, and sincerely attached to them.
And so naturally there was an opposition to something that did not merely say,
"Here's another god to put beside them," but denied their very
existence. We find at Lystra, when Paul and Barnabas went in there, the people,
seeing the miraculous healing, said "These are two of the gods come down
to earth; Barnabas is Jupiter and Paul is Mercury, the messenger of
Jupiter." And they were going to make sacrifices and worship them. Then
when Paul and Barnabas said, "No we're just men like yourself, don't fall
down before us." Then there came the revulsion against them, and they
began to stone them and oppose them.
This
widespread knowledge and worship and adoration of the Greek gods was—to quite
an extent—a hindrance to the spread of Christianity. And of course also there
were those who were commercially interested, like the craftsmen of Ephesus, who
said, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" They got a good living by
making mementos of Diana—statues of her—and so on. There were those who were
commercially tied up with it. But that was one disadvantage to Christianity
from Hellenism. And a second disadvantage,
b. The Widespread Skepticism of Everything Supernatural among a Small but Influential Class. This would also be partly the effect of Greek Philosophy. There were those everywhere who had no use for the old Greek gods; they believed they didn't exist, made fun of them, ridiculed them; but their tendency was to do the same with any new kind of god. They simply didn't believe in anything supernatural.
Now that sort of thing simply doesn't last when it comes to the great crises of life. People recognize there must be something beyond their power to comprehend or to deal with; and these who hold this view are apt to have a strong revulsion from it. And when they do they're apt to accept whatever happens to be near. If it's some real Christian teaching, they're apt to accept that; and if it's not they're apt to accept some wild vagary. Some of the craziest cults have some very highly educated people in them; after denying everything supernatural, they have come to a time of sorrow or loss or need in their life; this cult has just happened to come along at that time, when they were ready to grab most anything.
It
is sad, often, that the cults have gotten people who should have been gotten by
Christians if they had been on the job. But these two were disadvantages to
Christianity of Hellenism. Now
C. Judaism. You see, we didn't spend much time on Hellenism, nothing like the time we spent on the Roman Empire; that is because the Roman Empire is a much more obvious factor in history, and we are constantly running up against it. Hellenism is a pervasive factor. To study it fully and carefully would take a very long time; but for our purpose in a course like this, all we do is to alert you to its importance, call it to your attention. We cannot go into details fully without taking much too much time.
But
Judaism is a factor to be reckoned with in the life of Christianity, for a
number of important reasons. Looking at it from a detached viewpoint, we note
that number
1. Judaism was represented in all parts of the Empire. If there were about 5 million Jews in the world then—it's pretty hard to say how many there were, since no census was taken of the type taken today—but if there were, perhaps a million of them would have been in Palestine; and the others scattered. And these people were scattered all over as traders and as workers, all over the empire. They were known everywhere. People might not know much about them; there might be comparatively few of them; they might think of them as shysters you had to watch out for; they might have no particular attraction to them, but they knew they existed. On the other hand, in every part of the empire there were some people who were greatly attracted by them. They got to know them a little, and they saw they had a philosophy in many ways much superior to that with which they were acquainted.
One of the noblest of the Greek philosophies is the system called Stoicism. When we examine it, it is pretty hard to keep from suspecting that Zeno the founder of Stoicism was himself influenced by contacts with Jews. Certain fundamental Biblical ideas, in a somewhat distorted form, lie at the base of his philosophic system, a system which had much influence in the empire. Jesus said, "Woe unto you, Pharisees, you compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte," and Judaism at this time was an actively proselytizing religion, gaining people to itself; there were Gentiles in every community, not great numbers but a few everywhere, who were interested in the synagogues and going to them; and some of them being converted. So there was an influence, a small but a very widespread influence and a very definite influence throughout the empire, being made by Judaism at this time.
Now the Romans regarded the Jews as a very queer sort of people. They would not admit Jupiter in their Temple; and they were the only people that refused to carry on their worship with Jupiter. But the Romans recognized this people had a queer sort of a religion, but it seemed rather harmless; and they permitted them to carry it on; they gave them certain exemptions, which were more or less a racial matter with the Romans. Here was this particular people they held under them; what's the use of having a fuss about it? They have peculiar ideas. So long as they're a people, we'll let them hold these ideas.
So Judaism was a permitted religion throughout the empire. They had one thing that the Romans couldn't understand at all; they wouldn't work on the Sabbath. That made a difficulty all over, but at the same time it gave a witness to their loyalty to their faith; their willingness to suffer for it, at times; and it was one thing which, even if they kept quiet and said nothing about their religion, when a certain day came along, and their employer had an important thing on, and they refused to work that day—why it brought to his attention the fact that they held a different idea than he had.
So we have it—they were in all parts of the empire; and this was a great advantage to Christianity in getting started. Wherever Paul went, he went into the synagogue and spoke; and the people in the synagogues were happy to have a Jew come in, who had been in Jerusalem lately, who could just bring them some news from the homeland; and then when he started explaining the Bible, they were much interested; and then as he went on a little, they began to see he had something a little different from the way they'd been taught; and some of them said this is the right answer, and others would get quite upset. But it gave a starting point all over the empire for the dissemination of Christianity.
So the Lord had provided the Roman Empire, with its universal peace, its lack of borders, its roads; He had provided the Greek language, its civilization; and He had provided the Jewish groups all over as a starting point for the knowledge of Christianity. So this is a unique time. There were advantages which would not have been present at all one hundred years earlier.
Now,
of course, there were some great disadvantages in this time too; but a hundred
years before the same disadvantages would all have been there, but without
these great advantages. Did the other people work seven days around the clock
and not have any days off? No, they had certain special festival days. They
might have a good many, but they did not have the seven-day cycle situation.
There were special games on certain days of the month; there were special
activities; but it did not come in this regular fashion as the Sabbath did. The
Jews insisted on this particular day. Well,
2. Factions
among the Jews.
This is more a matter of NT study, or a study of the period between the
Testaments than of Church History, because we are getting beyond that. That is
to say, that Christianity began as a Jewish movement—the first converts were
all Jews—but before we have much information about it, outside the Bible, it
had become predominantly a Gentile movement; and consequently the Jewish
factions are of great importance for the start of it—again, in the
understanding of the Bible—but not so much as it continues. So we won't do more
than fairly glance at it here; but we should glance at
a. The
Sadducees.
And the Sadducees were the descendants of Zadok, who was the High Priest in
David's time. They were the hereditary, secular, and religious rulers of the
Jews. These people who by birth, by background, would have been expected to be
the great custodians of Judaism, its great leaders, many of them were very much
attached to the advantages they had from their position; they were anxious to
get more advances by making good relationships with the people who were
outside; and consequently a great many of the Sadducees were rationalists; they
gave lip service to believing in the OT, maintaining the ceremonies, but they
questioned very seriously whether there was such a thing as a resurrection from
the dead. They were very much against anything that would seem to look like a
fanatical interest in religion, and they were quite ready to make compromises
with Roman power and Greek culture in ways which to many of the Jews seemed to
be compromising their whole position and belief. Then
b. The Pharisees. The Pharisees were the real religious leaders among the Jews. Not many of them had high positions in the religious organization of the Jews. These positions were largely in the hands of the Sadducees. But the Pharisees had their interest in the Tabernacle largely, rather than the Temple which the Sadducees controlled.
They studied the laws very, very carefully, and they were very exact in their external observance; they tended to misinterpret the law, making it a means of salvation, instead of simply something to point the way of sanctification, as it was intended, and to show people their lack and their need of a Savior. So among the Pharisees were many very fine people who were wanting to do what they understood to be right, and trying to follow the prescriptions of Judaism very, very fully, and very carefully; and yet there were many of them who put their emphasis on externality and who took an attitude of holier-than-thou.
The Pharisees were the best of the rank and file of Jews; they were the best of them, but they were the ones who got very strong denunciations from Christ, because they came just not far enough to really stand for what was right; but the Sadducees were away over on the other side; and Jesus denounces them, but not as frequently as He does the Pharisees.
Actually,
from among the Pharisees many of the early Christians came. Paul himself was a
Pharisee, a man who had studied with Gamaliel, one of the leaders of the
Pharisees. And then a third group is
c. The Essenes. We don't know a great deal about them. The Essenes were men who were attached to the Bible and to Judaism as they understood it, but who felt that the Temple was bad; that it had fallen into wrong hands; that the true teaching was not being observed; and they would go off into the wilderness and live in little groups by themselves; and try to develop the spiritual life there; and there were many different types of them, some of them probably being very close to real Biblical ideas, and others being quite peculiar in special ideas and attitudes which they developed. Some ancient writers tell us a little about these Essenes; and that's all we knew about them till recently—what these ancient writers said.
Now, beginning about ten years ago, we have discovered the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls; and these Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a group that lived in the wilderness, not so many miles from Jerusalem and devoted a great part of their time to copying the OT books. And we also have among these Dead Sea Scrolls their rules of life. And in their rules of life, they show that the group was a sect. People had to be a year under probation before they could be admitted to it; they had to abstain from certain things. Very definitely an ascetic sect, separating itself from all of life, and living off alone in the wilderness that way.
And immediately people say, "These are the Essenes." But then you read what our ancient writers say about the Essenes, and in certain points the Dead Sea Scroll people are different from the description we have in ancient times. So people are divided today, are these Essenes or not? Well if you take Essenes for the name of all these different types of people that went out in the wilderness, and lived in groups and had their own special type of practices they developed, they certainly were. But if you take Essenes as meaning one particular group of this type; who were just like that described by these ancient writers; then this was another similar group. So whether you call them Essenes or not is a matter of terminology. They don't use the word themselves; and great controversies have raged; are they Essenes, or are they not?
But actually it's just a matter of terminology. Essenes in the larger sense, they certainly are. Essenes in a specific sense, they certainly are not. But this is a movement in Judaism; and Josephus—who was a wealthy man of high family, great many connections, eventually a general in the Jewish army, later on the favorite of the Roman emperor—Josephus as a young man tried to learn about all the different sects of Judaism; and he went out in the wilderness and lived with one of the groups of Essenes for a time, in order to get acquainted with their manner of life and their type of teaching and so on. And when he writes his account of the Jewish War, he describes what he had observed of these different groups. But his description is not the same as this Dead Sea group that we have in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's similar but must have been a different group.
Well, Judaism then was a great advantage for the spread of Christianity; but very soon many of the Jewish leaders realized—in every sect there were those who realized—Christianity was very different from what they themselves were teaching.
And consequently the first opposition to Christianity comes from Judaism. It is Jewish people who begin to oppose it, while as far as the Roman Empire is concerned, it's just a little Jewish sect, and they're not particularly interested. But it is Jewish groups and Jewish people, who are the first opponents of Christianity; and the first persecution comes from the Jews, and the Roman Empire protected them from the Jews' persecution. After a time they are being persecuted by both the Jews and the Roman Empire.
The
Romans of course were an impartial force, trying to maintain law and order; and
consequently, they gave the Christians much-needed protection at that time. So
much for this very brief glance at Judaism. I think you should have one more
point,
3. High Spots in the History of Judaism during the First Two Centuries. As you know the Jews had been ruled by Alexander the Great; they become a part of the Egyptian Empire under the Ptolemies, and then are taken from them by the Seleucids; they gained their independence under the Maccabees. But the Romans were largely in control of them at the time of Christ. At the beginning, at the birth of Christ, they had their own king, Herod—actually an Edomite—but nominally a Jewish king; but they were under Roman control, though semi-independent.
But at the time of the crucifixion of Christ they had become a Roman province and were definitely under Roman power, with Pontius Pilate as a representative of the Roman power then. Pontius Pilate couldn't understand these divisions among these peculiar people; nor their queer ideas about not wanting the emperor's statue in the Temple and all that sort of thing; and when they all—a lot of people—were gathered together against one man, and trying to get him put out of the way, Pilate didn't feel like bothering with these people fighting among themselves. He didn't find anything wrong with Jesus, wanted to let him go, but didn't have strength of character enough to look into the thing thoroughly and see what was right.
But he is in the background. The Jews wouldn't dare injure Christ personally; they couldn't kill him without Pontius Pilate's agreement; but he was just trying to guarantee law and order, and beyond that, not interfering much in the general life at that time.
But
a very vital event at this time, we'll call
a. The Destruction of Jerusalem 70 AD. After Pontius Pilate gave in to the mob, thinking that in so doing he was making his position more secure, and appeasing the people in general, and actually it did not work out that way. As someone has said, "When we make peace and security such an objective—that we neglect justice to get peace—we soon find we haven't any justice or peace." And that's what Pontius Pilate and his successors found, that they could not simply give in to the mob and expect the people to be satisfied.
If they would discover what was right and stand upon it, the bulk of the people would come to realize it and be satisfied; but they simply were trying to placate the factions and keep the people subject to them; they ended in antagonizing nearly all factions. And the result was that one thing after another irritated the Jews more and more; and then when some of them would strike back and perhaps one or two Roman soldiers would be killed, the Romans might wipe out a whole village as a warning to the people. And that would arouse more dislike; and finally the Jews became so aroused that in 66 AD the Jewish Rebellion broke out; and the whole of Palestine threw off the Roman yoke.
In the first part of it, the Jews gained complete independence from Rome; but of course it was only against those Roman soldiers who were there at the time. Rome could not brook this opposition to its authority. If they allowed one of the captive nations to gain freedom, others would follow their example; and they had to either give up their tyrannical control or put down the nation that had been rebelling.
And so a very able patriot general Vespasian was dispatched by Nero to go and to bring Palestine under subjection. He came and with his army very ably got these two Jewish forces divided; he met them with different armies, one after another, and defeated them. And he got all of Palestine into his hands except Jerusalem; and then when he had everything but Jerusalem, the Essenes in the wilderness had hidden their manuscripts in caves; but the Jewish people were in Jerusalem to the very last, so there was a long terrible siege of Jerusalem.
The
thing quieted down for a little bit and people said, "They won't do
anything, they'll give it up and they won't come back." The Christians,
instead of staying, nearly all of them left the city and headed off into the
mountains. So then the Roman army came back with force. When Nero was killed
and Vespasian headed back to Rome to become Roman Emperor, his son Titus
continued the siege; and there were a few Jews who left the city, thinking
there was no hope there; they were reduced practically to starvation; they
would go to the Romans and if they gave up their lives would be spared they
figured. But they didn't want just their lives, they wanted to save some of
their money. So some of them took their gold coins and swallowed them, thinking
that way they would save them. But when it was discovered that one or two had
done this, the Roman soldiers immediately suspected everyone who came of having
gold coins in them; and the result was that a great many Jews who wanted to
surrender were killed by the envious Roman soldiers looking for the money they
thought they were hiding in that way. It was a terrible time of disaster and
misery, and ended with the destruction of the city, and the selling of
thousands of Jews into slavery. And the destruction, as Jesus had predicted 40
years before, occurred in AD 70. Then
b. Simon Bar Kokhba, 132 AD. At least 60 years later, there was a young Jew who was an able speaker and who was able to arouse people with his enthusiastic declaration that he was the son of the star predicted in Numbers 24, who would smite Edom. The word "Edom," you see, looked much like "Rome"; the "d" and the "r" were very similar in Hebrew and Aramaic, and they used to put Edom often for Rome. This fellow's name was Simon ben Kosiba—Simon the son of Kosiba—but they called him Bar Kokhba, son of a star, after the prediction in Numbers about the star.
He was able in 132 to gather a large number of people around him and to drive the Romans out of Jerusalem; he quickly put up new fortifications in that city, and he told them that the Lord was going to deliver them, and that he was going to be the Messiah.
The Roman army came in 135 and after another siege—much less than the first siege because of the far smaller number and the fortifications weren't anywhere near as good—they succeeded in breaking into the city; and Bar Kokhba and a few men fled and made a stand a few miles away; and there the Romans attacked them and killed them. Then the Roman Emperor said, "This city has twice now been conquered and caused difficulty; now we're going to put an end to it forever." So he said Jerusalem will never be called Jerusalem again; it is to be a city devoted to the worship of Jupiter. And no Jew is to be allowed to come within ten miles of Jerusalem on pain of death.
And so after 135 AD that was the situation in Jerusalem for a long time. These were of course very, very sad days in the life of Judaism—these two disasters. But fortunately for Judaism, after the first disaster—the fall of Jerusalem in the first place—one of the Rabbis had immediately gone to the Roman authorities and asked if they would allow him to found a school, which he declared was only for religious purposes, nothing political at all; and they allowed him to found a school at Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee that studied the OT and put in the vowel marks eventually, and wrote commentaries about it and eventually the Talmud came into existence, and that became the center of Judaism for a long time after that.
Well, this rapid survey, the history of Judaism at that time is vital for its connection with the history of the church in that period. Now we'll continue there tomorrow.
[Answers to written questions]. There were five of these papers yesterday that had questions in them that I think are worth our taking just a second on anyway.
The first one says, "Dr. MacRae, this summer I was reading in the Dec. 1958 National Geographic Magazine and came to an article by A. W. Creshingham, The Man who Hid the Dead Sea Scrolls. He seems quite dogmatic in mentioning that the material refers to the Essenes."
Now, if somebody were to see you in Europe and say, "Look there's a man from Pennsylvania," you'd say, "No, I'm not from Pennsylvania, I have lived in New Jersey all my life." Well, New Jersey wouldn't be the opposite of Pennsylvania; it would be on the opposite bank of the river, and it would be different, definitely different, but they would have much in common, very much in common. In fact, in most parts of Europe, someone from any part of the United States would be so similar to you that you wouldn't much worry what part of the country they were from.
Now here this question is strictly a matter of terminology. What is an Essene? There is no way of knowing, because nobody living today has ever seen an Essene; or had a chance to talk with one; or read a book that had a definition of one in. But Josephus and Philo, two writers of the first century AD, in describing the people of Palestine, say there are people called Essenes, who lived in the wilderness and who looked down on the Temple service; they think it's all bad, had nothing to with it; they lived out in the wilderness by themselves. People are on probation for three years before they are allowed to join the group there; and then they have nothing whatever to do with women or with money.
Now that's just a small portion of the description of the Essenes by Philo and Josephus. And then Hippolytus, a Christian writer, about 200 AD, had something to say about the group. Well, now, we have found that they use the word Essenes, and they say this is what the Essenes do.
Now we have found in this last decade at Qumran, a place over toward the Dead Sea in the wilderness, the evidence that a group of Jews at lived there at the time of Christ; and we have records of them, in which they thought the temple had fallen into wicked hands; they would have nothing to do with the temple as it was then conducted; they had left the main body of the Jews and lived out there; they had to be a year on probation before they could join the group; and thus far it sounds like the Essenes, doesn't it? But you examine the graves there at Qumran of a thousand people, and you find that a very large number of them are women. So when Josephus said, "They had nothing to do with women, it doesn't sound a bit like this group," and you find many coins in their remains there and that doesn't sound like them when he says they have nothing to do with money. Now we don't know enough about it; nowhere in their writings do they use the word "Essenes".
So we don't know. Maybe they are the group that Josephus and Philo talked about, the same group, but Josephus and Philo simply used this particular description. Or maybe Josephus and Philo are talking about one group and this is an entirely different one, but a similar one in many ways, though different in some. We don't know. So we take a man like Millar Burrows at Yale University, one of the first men to work on the Dead Sea scrolls, and who has written two books [Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls], a later one after this [More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls], but they are recognized as among the best scholarly books on the Dead Sea Scrolls which we have.
Now I did not look up in the later one whether it has anything further in it; but the first book has a full chapter here which he called "Identification." He says, for instance, in one place, the belief of these people concerning the future life as depicted in chapter 12, is quite different from what Josephus ascribes to the Essenes. He goes through and makes comparisons and shows at point after point, minor differences between these people and the people that Josephus and Philo call Essenes. And in the end he says—to sum up the net result—he says, the fact of the matter is we do not know whether the term Essenes includes these or not. If this term be used in a broad comprehensive sense we may legitimately call the Qumran sectarians Essenes. For the present, however, in order not to pre-judge the case, it seems better to reserve that name to the group described by Philo and Josephus which, if their reports are accurate, would be not exactly identical with the Qumran community.
As a matter of convenience, we may still designate the latter by the term covenanters, which implies neither the acceptance nor the rejection of the identification with the Essenes. At any rate, it is clear that the sect of Qumran bore closer relation to the Essenes than does any other group named. So it is purely an argument over terminology whether they are Essenes or not. We do not know.
And somebody writing a popular article may use the word Essenes in a broad sense. But if somebody is writing a scholarly article, it would be wise to say, as Josephus and Philo described Essenes, they are different from these people, yet they are so similar that we don't know whether Essene is their group and this is a different group, or whether Essene is a broad term that might include people of many different varieties as long as they agreed on certain main things.
So much for answer to that question; I did not take this much time for this because I thought it was particularly important whether you call them Essenes or not; but I thought that the matter of method is quite important. Names vary tremendously in their usage; for instance, you may all have been shocked, as I was, yesterday [apparently in the Faith Seminary Chapel] to hear a man say these people did not want a Christian minister when I left and I didn't want them to have a Christian minister. I'm sure you were all shocked, as I was, and then he went on to say that they wanted a doctrinal minister.
Well, the fact is that if he used "Christian" in the proper sense, the best thing that could ever happen to a church is to have a Christian minister. But if you use Christian in the particular sectarian sense in which it seems to have been used in that situation, judging by the previous one who had used that, come from that particular background, the people were very sensible in their attitude, they did not want a Christian minister. So in the light of all that he said, his sentence was very sensible—they did not want a Christian minister—very sensible. But if you just took that one sentence apart from the rest of his talk and somebody outside says, "At Faith Seminary, they don't want churches to have Christian ministers," why it would give a terrible impression; the word is used in various senses and that's true of the word Essenes.
The next question asks whether the furniture of the Temple was destroyed; and the answer to that is that the city as a whole was destroyed, but that when the Roman soldiers broke in, they intended to destroy most everything. But anything that would make good booty that they could take back to Rome to show what a wonderful conquest they'd made, they would endeavor to save.
And when we have a picture in Rome today—I saw it a year and a half ago there—on the Arch of Titus, of Titus' soldiers carrying a 7-branch candlestick, it gives you a pretty good certainty that the 7-branch candlestick was not destroyed, but was brought with them to Rome to carry in their triumphal procession. Now how much else they carried we do not know. What happened to the Ark of the Covenant, nobody knows. Some people think it was destroyed there, some think that it was buried, hidden by the Jews somewhere else, and may yet be found sometime. Nobody knows what happened to it. But the 7-branch candlestick was taken to Rome because, even if the Roman sculptor wanted to be a liar, and many of them did, he would hardly put up a monument where everybody in Rome would see, showing something being carried there that hadn't been carried. That would be too obvious. We can be quite sure that it at least was rescued.
Then here's a question that says, "Would you say that John the Baptist belonged to the sect of the Essenes? He lived in the wilderness." I would say yes, he lived in the wilderness. I would say definitely not—he did not belong to the sect of the Essenes. You will find statements in books that he did; but the Essenes were a close-knit group living together under very strict vows of holding themselves in one group; and everything that we find in the Bible shows John the Baptist as an independent man who was doing what he felt the Lord called him to do; and it would be very strange if he had been a member of a group which had a year's probation before being allowed to join it. So when people say John the Baptist is an Essene, why they may say it in the general sense, that they just mean a man who spent much time in the wilderness. If they mean an Essene in the proper sense, he certainly would not have been.
Then this question: "Wasn't there a group called Zealots living in the mountains, or are these the same as Essenes? Also Joseph and Mary were obviously not of any of these groups." Joseph and Mary were obviously not of any of these groups, definitely. "Zealots" is the term which if I recall correctly, is used in the NT for people who wanted to fight against the Romans; these were groups that organized together in order to make guerilla attacks or to hope to have a rebellion against it. There were small groups of Zealots which the Romans destroyed. Eventually, there were large enough groups to cause a great rebellion, which brought on the destruction of the temple.
The Essenes, according to Josephus would have nothing to do with war, were strong pacifists; and that is pretty good proof the Zealots and Essenes were quite different. Now the Qumran people, they were different from either one; they were not Essenes in this sense because they did not wish to mix in the war that was going on, but they expected a great war when the light of the sun would darken; and in their books they tell what they should do when that war comes. They were very definitely not pacifists.
Then it says, "In your opinion are the idols which the Romans brought into the Temple the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel?" Now that's not Church History, that's exegesis. And we don't have time here for it, but I think it's important enough to say this: that nobody is certain what the abomination of desolation is, described in Daniel. But that there are many excellent scholars who have thought that the idols that the Romans brought into the Temple were the abomination of desolation; many who have thought they were. And before anybody speaks dogmatically on another view, he should study this view, see the evidence, and be able to give a reasonable statement of either acceptance or rejection. I have not given my opinion on it at all; I merely state the fact that it is a view that many hold; and there is sufficient evidence for it that no one should take another without first examining carefully, and either accepting it or rejecting it. That's not my view, but I rather doubt that anybody could be absolutely certain.
Then, the next question here is: "It seems that there is a distinct weakness in the outline to list failure of government under Achievements of Greeks." There again, that's a matter of terminology. The achievements of Greeks—if by achievements you mean the good things they did—certainly that failure doesn't belong there. But the word achievements could be used in a less common sense, as in an evaluation of their achievements—how great were their achievements in different fields—and if you use it that way, in the other fields it was excellent but in this particular field they did not have excellence. So I don't know as I'll admit that it was a failure in the outline, or a weakness in the outline, but I certainly will admit that it is a point at which some other arrangement might perhaps be better.
Then the question said, "Why is the moving of sites of ancient cities from a hill to the plain as a result of the protection of the Roman army to the disadvantage of the archeologists?" And the answer is that it is not to the disadvantage of the archeologist but to the advantage of the archaeologist, that they had been moved.
If you go into certain places in Palestine—or especially in Egypt—and you want to excavate, you'll find a present-day town with people living there; and if you're going to dig under them and see what's there, you're at a tremendous disadvantage; whereas if you are at a place where the people are living in a town two or three miles away, and there's a hill where the old city was, it is much easier to excavate. All you have to pay for is the crops you displace; you don't have to pay for tearing houses down. So it is a great advantage to excavators that the cities were moved from the hills to the plains.
But when archeology first began, it was then a great disadvantage because one of the best ways of locating places—sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't—is to see whether the name has been preserved. For instance I was over in Transjordan; we were looking for the place that is named Ham in Genesis 14. It says [verse 5] that Chedorlaomer and the kings that were with him came down to Ashteroth Karnaim and Ham and Shaveh Kiriathim. We knew where Shaveh was, and we knew where Ashteroth was, so we guessed that Ham was somewhere in between them.
So in a general place, more or less in between the two, we found a little village which is called Ham today. Well, now that is exceptional, Has that name been kept there for 3,000 years in this little village? Well, it's a wonderful clue to the location. Now, it could be that the name has disappeared and a new name has come in its place. It could be that the name has been moved, but it may be a clue; and there are hundreds of instances where names have been preserved, which are wonderful clues. In that case, we looked near the town and we saw about a mile away a little hill, and you could see the outcropping, out of the ground, of a triple line of fortifications round the hill. We went to the hill and we found pottery evidence from the time of Abraham, so it was pretty good proof that that was the town of Ham.
It has not yet been excavated; but it would be a great advantage for the archeologist, for the people moved down to the plain, so you don't have to move their houses in order to excavate. But before this fact was known, it was then a great disadvantage; because when people found a town or a ruin or something with a name, they said, "Here's where it was," and they began to excavate, and they didn't find anything; and there are many excavations back in the 1880's which were absolutely useless because people dug and found nothing. But when Petrie discovered that the city had been moved, then the name still gives you a clue to the area; but the exact place itself is not inaccessible because the town is in a different place.
Another question: "Was there Emperor worship before the time of Diocletian?" That's a rather broad question; if you say was there any?—certainly there was, because Caligula said he was a god; he went to the temple and talked to Jupiter; and he demanded that people treat him as god; certainly Caligula demanded that he be recognized as a god; but I don't think the people looked on him as a god. But if you say, "Was there emperor worship?" I'm sure some of the men who wanted Caligula's favor pretended to worship him; and I'm sure when his statue was put around among the different parts of the empire, there were many people who worshipped; but it was certainly not a part of the regular Jupiter-worship, to worship a living emperor, prior to the time of Diocletian.
But when Augustus died, the Roman Senate voted to recognize that he had become a god at his death; so after his death, he was worshipped as a god. And they did the same with quite a few of the emperors; the Senate voted to recognize them—that they at death had become gods and they were worshipped as gods. So when Diocletian introduced this oriental custom of having people come and bow before him and crawl up to him and all that sort of thing—to give him a tremendous impression, how very great and important he was—but the general attitude of considering the emperor as a god, at least after his death, is something that is found in a good many cases; but not in many cases a definite article of constant practice. After Diocletian made it so definite, then when Constantine died—who was the first Christian Emperor—the Roman Senate voted that his name be enrolled among the gods; and likely some of the pagans worshipped him, though he was a Christian.
Well, so much then for these questions, which were very intelligent questions, and which had a logical number of important things that were very good for us to look into.
Now we had finished looking at Greek civilization and we had gone on to C, Judaism. And we completed our discussion. We noted that Judaism was a great advantage in getting Christianity started; then it was a disadvantage almost immediately after it got started because of the opposition of many of the Jews; and it was a great advantage because of the introduction throughout the empire of some of the basic teachings of Christianity by the Jewish groups; this porovided opportunities of presenting Christianity in the synagogues, and thus to get the first nuclei of Christian Jews all over the empire. The leaders expected that all the Jews would become Christians, and were surprised when so many didn't; and they were equally surprised when the Gentiles began to; for as Paul pointed out, it had been predicted by Isaiah, a thousand years before, that that was exactly what was happening.
So there we leave Judaism at this point; now for a very brief recapitulation of this whole section.
The
world into which Christianity came was one which God had marvelously prepared
for the dissemination of the gospel. Jesus came in the fullness of time: at a
time when the Jewish groups were scattered throughout the empire; at a time
when the Greek language was understood throughout the empire; at a time when
the Roman roads had been built, the Roman peace had been established, borders
had been removed by the Roman army. It was a far more propitious time for the
spread throughout the Roman Empire of a new religion than could have been a
hundred years before. And at this time there was, among many, a dissatisfaction
with the old gods; a feeling that they were not the answer to life's problems;
a questioning, a feeling for something new shown in the acceptance in Rome of
all kinds of queer cults which would come in; and the Romans weren't much
surprised when another queer cult began coming. There was a general attitude of
tolerance of all these queer cults that were coming into the city. Well, that
was the world into which Christianity came.
Now I trust all of you are familiar with the common historical terminology of speaking of the first century A.D. as the century which runs up to 100 A.D. So that a year like 134 won't be part of the first century, but part of the second. Today is 19-something or other and we call it the 20th century. The last century we called the 19th century, the 1800's. The church in the first century then would be the church up till about 100 A.D. And under that is:
A. The Beginning of
the Church. Of the beginning of the church we are well informed in the
Bible. And consequently, it lies outside the proper area of this particular
course. It is Gospel history, Apostolic History, Exegesis. But we have very
considerable information, as you know, about how the church was established.
And I want you to survey that part of the information in the book of Acts as
part of our work in this course, though our lectures will not deal with it, except
as you may bring in any questions that you think we ought to look at, and I'll
see whether they're worth taking time for.
1. Evidence in Acts and the Epistles. But in the beginnings of the church we have a good deal of information. We see how it was founded upon the belief in the resurrection. A little group of the disciples were scattered widely; they were filled with fear as they saw their leader crucified. And a few days later we find them boldly proclaiming that he was raised from the dead. And with this—persecution, suffering death, because of their belief that he was still living, and he was active—and that it was vital that other people should know about it. It is pretty hard to believe that people would have such a change in their whole attitude as that, unless they really had seen him. There have been those who have tried to explain it by saying they all had a vision. Now individuals have had queer visions in the world's history; but to get a group of a hundred people that all had this same vision, and think that they saw him raised from the dead and talking to them, is mighty hard to imagine.
Prof. Kirsopp Lake—formerly of Harvard University, then of Bryn Mawr, before his death—Professor Kirsopp Lake had a different view. He said that it was through the infatuation of a crazed woman that Christianity began. He said that, though Mary Magdalene was filled with sorrow, that she was just beside herself with anguish. She went to the tomb to put something on his body; and she was so perturbed and got the wrong tomb; so she came to a tomb and found it empty. Then she saw the gardener and she said, "Tell me where you've taken him, what's happened to him?" He said, "He's not here; he's up there." And when he said he's up there, she thought he meant he's risen, gone up; she figured that he was raised from the dead and told the others; and that started Christianity.
Well,
it is psychologically mighty difficult to believe this. If she was that sort of
a woman, who would believe such a statement as that, they would have seen it in
other details. Others thought that it was a natural weakness on the part of one
who was so devoted to him; but certainly not themselves. Certainly not; that
they would go out and face death; to do what they did, and spread Christianity
through the empire. They had a solid conviction that Christ was risen from the
dead, and they had seen Him. That is the beginning of Christianity.
2. The Importance of the Resurrection. Many people call it one of the best-authenticated facts in history; he was raised from the dead; and that's what it was intended to do; that it made such a difference in lives and attitudes of this whole group of disciples; that began a movement that spread throughout the Christian church.
Now we have then the book of Acts; the church is originally just in Jerusalem; then we have persecution which drove the people away from Jerusalem; and they began working wherever they went, so we have churches starting in other places; and then we have Paul going and preaching all over the Roman world; and then we have a problem coming up, and the churches sending representatives to Jerusalem for a binding decision on the problem, the important problem of doctrine which had come up; they sent their representative in order to learn what the truth was on that; and so the church met together in Jerusalem; members of the church in Jerusalem there and representatives from other churches; and the decision was made—Acts 15—and it was the first great Church council which made a decision that was so important for the whole future of Christianity.
The decision they made did not claim to give any insight of their own. Paul in his epistles says God has revealed this to me; this is God's word. But in the council in Jerusalem, they did not say God has revealed this to us. God wished that council to be not an instance of His supernatural activity, as found in Acts, but rather as an example to us in subsequent days. So the way that it was done was to look in the Bible and see what it teaches; and James quoted the OT and showed what it teaches; and they said, "Therefore since the Bible says this, our decision is as follows." They based it upon the Word of God. It was a study of the Word of God in order to apply it to their particular problem; a study made by the representatives of the church and presented not by saying, "We have authority, you take what we say." Paul didn't do that, as God's messenger, when God told him to give a certain message. But here, this was given, not as our authority, but as what God's word said. This is of course the only sure foundation of any real knowledge in Christian things.
In this book by McSorley, he says at the beginning of the book, one might have anticipated that the Founder of Christianity does not leave His revelation to the uncertain phrases of the book in connection with the written record. That in order to insure permanency we would make use of the obvious means, that is to say, would organize a society which after His death would function as a court of appeal and decide controversies about the meaning of his doctrine. He did found a society, a church with St. Peter as head and promising to protect it until the end of time. That is what McSorley specifically states here.
[McSorley, An Outline History of the Church, Introduction, p.5: "One might have anticipated that the Founder of Christianity would not leave His revelation to the uncertain fate of spoken messages and written records. That in order to insure permanency He would make use of the obvious means; that is to say, He would organize a society which after His death would function as a court of appeal, and decide controversies about the meaning of His doctrine.* He did found a society, the Church, placing St. Peter at its head and promising to protect it until the end of time." * Here he has a footnote: "No legal document, no will or testament, no political constitution, be it ever so carefully drawn up, can fail to become the subject of misinterpretation and the occasion of misunderstandings among men. An authority with the right to decide, a court whose decision is final, there must always be, under penalty of confusion and division."]
But in the council of Jerusalem you do not find Peter presiding at all. He's merely one of the various ones who taught; and it is James, who is not even one of these who taught, who presides at the meeting and who gives the decision of the meeting at the end, so the facts here do not fit with what McSorley says. One might have anticipated that God wouldn't leave his Revelation unless God by His Spirit directed it.
But if God rules and directs, it's a far more certain way to give the Word—free from error—and have it here that we can all study it, and see what it says; than to leave it up to a group of men. Even such godly men and such intelligent men as the apostles differed radically upon some vital matters, till God gave a specific, definite revelation for the answers to the questions. And today Catholics claim that the pope at Rome is the divinely established teacher of the church; and he alone can speak infallibly on doctrine. And so the pope about ten years ago officially declared the assumption of Mary; and so people ask, "What does that mean?" There has been a tradition in the Roman church that Mary was taken directly to heaven; but does that mean that she died and that her body was taken to heaven, or does it mean that she was taken to heaven without dying? And the position is in two forms. Some say she was taken to heaven and never died; others say she died, was buried, was put in a sarcophagus and that a day or two later the apostles opened the sarcophagus and found it empty as proof she had gone to heaven.
And at the Vatican in Rome there are some things shown, showing that the apostles looked into the empty sarcophagus, one of them has it filled with flowers. There's no body there, it's just filled with flowers. And then you see, way up above, the body of Mary up in heaven. Well, which of the two is true? And then read the statements that the pope gave, when he as the official teacher, explained the Christian doctrine; and you will find that he worded it in such a way that all he said was that Mary was taken to heaven; he didn't say whether she was taken before she died or whether her body was dead. No matter which view they had, they can say we have the papal authority.
There was a German, a century ago, named Hahnemann, who said all our present-day medicine is wrong; this business of giving medicines that are opposite to the things that a person has in order to correct it is entirely wrong; he wanted to give the same thing, so he called it homeopathy, not allopathy, like most, giving the opposite, but giving the same thing, and in very, very small doses. And 60 years ago our country had many homeopaths; and it was a very excellent thing for a man who was traveling around on horseback or in carriages, because with little tiny doses he didn't have to have a very big sack of it, in order to carry what he needed to treat all the people on his route.
But the homeopaths were very, very bitterly opposed to ordinary medicine, and very insistent on the great discoveries that Hahnemann made. Today there's a large institution downtown [Philadelphia], the Hahnemann Hospital, with a fine medical school connected with it; and I asked one of the students there, how much you learn, are you thoroughly indoctrinated with the views of Hahnemann? No, he said, there's an elective course in Hahnemann's views, which anybody can take if he feels like it; but he said, most people don't take it; and the teaching here is exactly the same as it is in any other medical school. So here is a human organization gathered together to carry on Hahnemann's ideas, without any mixture with this terrible thing of ordinary medicine; and now it's entirely ordinary medicine that they give; and the name Hahnemann is preserved; there's an elective course for anybody who feels like it, but if there's no special reason for it, nobody ever takes it.
Well that's the fate of human organization. If God wants to insure permanency of anything, He has to send His Holy Spirit to direct the flock. No human leader will insure it. But he'll get a lot nearer with a written record, which people can read and see what the human organization is supposed to be doing. So the church began with the resurrection of Christ; with the giving of the human written records; with the giving of the epistles; the declaration of God's will so that we could read and study and learn from it exactly what it was; and God called the apostles with supernatural blessings in the start of Christianity when it was like a little tiny flickering light of a candle; it was a tiny little movement, any little breeze could blow it out; He provided them with miracles and signs to get it started and spread a little; and then after that, those particular supernatural evidences mainly ceased. The Spirit began to work in the hearts of man to guide him; and to direct those who were spreading the Word; to illuminate their minds as they studied; but as to the miracles and the obvious supernatural signs of the earlier activities, they ceased after the church got started. So within a very short time—we don't know how many decades—it was like it is today, with the people reading the truth and growing.
So
much for A, The Beginning of the Church.
B. The Period of Little Evidence. There is a full generation—a period of 50 or 60 years—regarding which we have practically no information. We have all the detailed information in Acts, and then it just stops. What happened to Timothy later? Who did Timothy train? What continued during that next half century? Our knowledge of Christianity is almost a blank; and here is McSorley who tells in his book about how God established an organization which would maintain the gospel; which would direct the work of the church; tells about this, tells us about the papacy. Saint Peter, he says, was the first Pope and then St. Linus was the successor of Peter. Who was the third? He says Clement and Anacletus, and Cletus, 79-90 A.D.; but he says approximately 79-90, but the names of one man or of two, cannot be settled decisively.
If the pope was the head of all the church, we don't even know whether Anacletus and Cletus are the third and 4th popes, or whether they are two names for the same man so they're only one. We don't know. And even if you don't believe in the papacy, the church at Rome was very important in the early days—a very important church—and Linus was certainly an important deacon of the church, when they call him their 2nd pope. So who was next? Is it Cletus or Anacletus, as leader of the church, one man or two men; nobody knows. Our ignorance of that period is almost complete, Sorry, I have to stop here today.
Was there a church in Rome in early days? Paul wrote a letter to the church at Rome. There must have been a church in Rome, or he would not have written a letter to them. So that's pretty good proof that there was a church in Rome. Furthermore, Paul says in his letter, "I am hoping to come to you so that I may also bear some fruit among you." I believe there was a church in Rome before Paul ever got there. But he wrote to the church in Rome. And in addition to that, in the last chapter of the book of Romans, Paul gives his greetings to an awful lot of people in Rome. A lot of fine Christians in Rome, that he must have met somewhere else before they went there.
So that is not questionable evidence; there's absolutely certain evidence that there was a fine Christian church at Rome. A church that is a good church. Paul didn't sit down like he did in his letter to Galatians, to scold them for their wrong doctrine. He didn't sit down like he did in Colossians or to the Corinthians to point out evils there that needed to be corrected. He sat down to write down the finest, clearest statement of the Christian doctrine of salvation that had ever been written, in order to ground the Roman church in the clear facts about salvation and to give evidence for them to pass on to others.
So the book of Romans is absolutely incontrovertible and unanswerable proof that there was a fine Christian church in Rome at a very early time.
Now of course you might—many of you—not have known that, but I would hope most of you would be familiar with the last chapter of the book of Acts, which tells how Paul at Rome gathered people together and preached to them and had believers there. So actually, when Paul went to Rome, he had a church at Rome with which he worked. But Romans shows that before he went there, there was a good church there to which he went.
When a man has been led to the Lord by someone else, it is very natural for him to speak of the other person as his father in the faith. Paul speaks of Timothy as his son in the faith because he had led Timothy to the Lord. It was very natural in early days for people to get the habit of calling great spiritual Christian leaders fathers or papas, and so that term came to be used rather widely at very early times. Then as time went on they came to restrict it to people in positions of leadership.
But the term, during many centuries of early church history, was applied to quite a number of people. The Bishop of Alexandria was often referred to as the Pope of Alexandria. By that they mean the spiritual father of the people of Alexandria. In the course of time, the Roman Catholic Church came to restrict the term to the Bishop of Rome; and today it is used, as far as I know, only of him. But that is a restriction. Ordinarily it was a term used of many different people, meaning their spiritual father, which gradually developed into the word papa, and that is the origin of the word Pope.
Here are one or two questions that were turned in last time. "Can we trace the nature, doctrine, or position, etc. of the church in Acts, Chapter 1, when the church was not really founded till after 2:1?" Where in the Bible does it say the church was not founded until Acts 2:1? In Acts 2:1 did a group of people get together and say now we found a church? Or did they get together and did the Holy Spirit say now I'm going to make you into a church? They got together and the Holy Spirit used them to witness to others and to add others to the church. Acts 2 tells of the first great enlargement of the church, by the bringing in of many people who were won by Peter's sermon.
Did the organization which the people joined come into existence early in that chapter without the chapter saying anything to us about that having happened? Or did the church which they joined, having been in prayer for the previous forty days, looking forward to that great outpouring of the Spirit of God upon them, which would enlarge the church as a result of His coming that day? Well, I think it's a matter of terminology. We cannot say one way or the other, because the scripture doesn't say. Where the scripture speaks positively, we know, where it doesn't, we don't know.
This much we can say. At the end of Acts 2 there were many people added to the church, thousands who believed as a result of Peter's sermon. What was the church to which they were added? When did it come into existence? Did it come into existence that morning? Maybe. But if so, the Bible doesn't say so. Had it been in existence during the period of Acts 1? It seems reasonable to think that it had, but there's no definite statement on it. So it is a matter of terminology on which we have no evidence to make any final and conclusive answer. We know at the end of Acts 2 there was a church. It seems strange, if it began in the beginning of Acts 2, that the Bible doesn't also say so. It seems logical to think that it also is in Acts 1, but it doesn't say so in Acts 1, so we have no way to make certain.
But suppose, for the sake of argument, suppose that without our being told anything about it, that the church actually was started at the beginning of Acts 2. Just before the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles for service and extension, an enlargement of the church, in that case you still have the people who are in it, being the same people who were together in Acts 1, endeavoring to serve the Lord to the best of their ability, and making preparation for Acts 2. So that being the case, you might want to put a certain question mark, if you hold that view, beside evidence from Acts 1 about the ordinances, leadership, and doctrine of the church. But still you couldn't throw the evidence out. You'd have to consider it as important to look at, even if you put a question mark.
Now as far as this course is concerned, we call this course Church History because we are concerned with the period in which there was an organization which was known under the name of the Christian church; and we're dealing with that after the end of what's spoken about in the Bible. So it was purely a matter of convenience.
In a strict sense, the church is all those evidently saved through Christ; so in a strict sense, it certainly wouldn't prove adequate—he would be a member of the church in this strict sense. But in the sense of this course we are speaking about that organization which has the name Christian Church, and there was no such name used until up in Antioch a good many years after Acts 2, but it is the organization which began to spread out in Africa, so let's not get tied up in knots over the use of names; let's recognize that there is a possibility.
Then here is a statement that is very interesting: "Dr. MacRae, It would be worthwhile to discuss sometime the practice of common sharing, as recorded in Acts, by the early church. What about the communism of the early church?"
That's really apostolic history rather than church history; but I do think it's worth noting, in the beginning of church history, very definitely. This is worth noting. In the beginning of Acts we do not have any command to the believers to bring everything they have and put it in the common treasury. What we have in Acts 5, or about there, we have Barnabas selling a field and bringing the money and laying it at the apostles' feet. He said, "You've got a big job here with all these widows and orphans; here's all my money to use for it." And it says they had all things common; they put everything they had into the common fund; they expended it commonly. But then you have Ananias as saying, "I sold my field; here's the money." Everybody praised Barnabas, so he wanted praise too. So he sold his field, and says, "I sold my field, here's the money, here's what I got."
Does Peter say, "Ananias, you are not handling this in an honest matter, the way it's supposed to be? All the property of all the believers is supposed to go in to the common fund, you only turned part of it; God's going to punish you?" That's not what he said. Peter says, "Ananias, is it true you sold the field for so much?" Ananias said, "Yes." Peter said, "You have not lied to men but to the Holy Spirit." Peter says while the field was yours, it was yours; you didn't have to sell it unless you wanted to. He said, after you sold it, the money was yours; you didn't have to give any of it in, unless you wanted to. He says you have lied and the Holy Spirit is going to take your life for it. And he said the same thing to Sapphira. In other words, they were not punished for not entering into a communist organization; they were punished for telling a lie to the Holy Spirit, and trying to get credit for something they had not done.
Then you go further; and you find that as you go on through the book of Acts, there is no evidence that in any other place the church established a communistic sort of system; that everybody pays in what they had, and everybody draws from the common fund. You don't find that anywhere else; but what you do find is that Paul and the others, wherever they went, had to raise money for the poor saints in Jerusalem who weren't able to support themselves.
So it certainly looks as if Christians failed in Jerusalem, and all the other churches had to support them; and there is no evidence such a thing was ever introduced anywhere else. Now that's a brief summary at this point; and I think it's rather important, and good to have it in mind. If I hadn't had the question, I might not have said anything about it, because of the fact that we have no evidence of any such organization ever again; and consequently it really doesn't enter into church history, except in a negative way. But it's a rather important in a negative way, because the of the viewpoint that the men in Jerusalem made that mistake of establishing in their enthusiasm a type of organization which failed there and was not developed anywhere else.
In
our outline we are under II, The Church in the First Century; A, The Beginning
of the Church; 1, Evidence in Acts and the Epistles. That of course is the
evidence: the story of the early days of the church. It is divinely inspired.
Anything we find in Acts or Epistles we can stand upon—also Revelation of course—as
proof about the church in early days. And then there is 2, The Importance of
the Resurrection, which I discussed last time as a vital factor in the church.
Then I mentioned B, The Period of Little Evidence; and under this, the note
that this period ran from the death of Christ to about 107 AD, a period of
about 80 years; but during that period we have the book of Acts which tells us
quite a lot about Peter in the first few years, and Paul in the next few. But
it stops there. The latter days of Paul we know nothing about, and practically
nothing about Peter after about the 12th chapter of the book. We are told
practically nothing about any of the apostles in the Bible, practically
nothing. So that for those 80 years, Acts and the Epistles are all that we have
about them in the Bible; and that only tells a very small amount of what
happened in the years covered by Acts, and we have nothing in the Bible about
the years after that. So the evidence from Acts of the Apostles is very
important, but it has its limitations as far as how much it covers. So here is
a period of at least 60 years, of which we have very little evidence. Now
1. How does
there come to be so little evidence?
a. The Type of Writing Material. Those were days of widespread literacy. Everybody that was educated at all was writing. They had their letters that went back and forth; they had their postal service; they had their permissions to do this and that; they had their receipts; they had all sorts of things in writing; but they wrote on papyrus, and papyrus is only a little better than the paper we use today—maybe two or three times better than the paper we use today. But let us suppose that tomorrow the sleeping sickness would jump across the Delaware from N.J. to here, and hit us all of a sudden and kill us all, so that we lay here and disintegrated and nobody else entered Philadelphia for the next 2,000 years.
And then 2,000 years from now—or maybe you could even say 400 years from now—people were to come into Philadelphia; we will have rotted away and blown off. They might find a few little pieces of bones here and there, as they ought to do, after 2000 years; maybe after 400 there might be more than that; but they would come to our libraries, and they wouldn't find much. They'd go to a newspaper department and see what they could find. Suppose you get the newspaper every day for the next ten years, and you pile it up on the shelf and leave them there for 50 years. Somebody comes and takes ahold of them; they just fail to pieces; you wouldn't be able to read them long. Now we do make certain editions of our newspapers on good rag paper, special editions for historical purposes, but most of us never see those special editions; and they wouldn't last many years; but the papyrus disintegrated, not as badly as our paper would today but pretty badly.
So you go into a city—the remains of a great city, like Philadelphia here—400 years from now; if nobody's been here between now and then, then probably the only writing we find would be the inscriptions chiseled on the front of buildings; and we have a number of them in Philadelphia. And some of those would have weathered away but many of them would still be there. And you'd be able to read some of those inscriptions and learn something about us from those. Papyrus was the regular material for writing—for most purposes—until 300 or 400 A.D.; and about that time they began widely using skins of animals for writing important things. And they would cut the skin of the animal in such a way that it would make a sort of a thin layer on which they would write; and that lasts a very, very long time. We have good scrolls of leather from very early times which are easy to read today.
Now we have some papyri from early as 1500 or 2000 B.C., which we can read today; but they are from Egypt, and Egypt is far dryer than almost any other civilized country in the world. And in addition to that, out of all the thousands and thousands of writings in Egypt on papyrus, all of them have disappeared except the ones that were buried in Egypt. There were great Egyptian classics, stories that were copied hundreds of times; all the wealthy people had copies of them in their homes; they were widely read, and every single copy has disappeared except one which was a child's copy as he was learning to write; the child died and the parents buried his schoolbooks with him; and there, buried away, this great ancient Egyptian classic has been preserved; and if that particular child hadn't happened to copy that before he died, we would have no record of that Egyptian classic. So, you see, that's in Egypt. In Palestine, even if you could bury a papyrus, it couldn't last. So the nature of the writing material has something do with the fact that we have very little evidence from this period.
The Christians were making their copies of the Bible; but not to make expensive copies that they could bury away somewhere so we could read them 2000 years later. Rather to make copies they could pass around, and read to one another, and have them available; they'd rather have 10 copies on cheap paper that they could distribute, than to have one beautiful copy that would last forever, but would be too expensive for anybody to afford to make it. They were not putting up their material in expensive forms in those days.
Most
of the great ancient classics that we have are copies made centuries after they
were written; and these are the only copies we have. Now that is an important
reason why we don't have much evidence from this time. There is a second much
more important reason:
b. The lack of Stimulus to Write History. Now what is the stimulus that leads somebody to write a history? That varies. Ordinarily, if you think you can sell the book and make some money, you may write a history. In those days we didn't have a publishing business like we have today. Or if you have a big established organization, and it's got big endowments, they're glad to pay people to write the history of it. But when you're a little concern, getting started, and spreading and disseminating yourself, you're too busy doing the work to sit down and write a history. So organizations in their early days—some of them—that are so interested in everything about themselves that they spend all their time writing histories, they soon die out; but the institutions that go ahead and succeed usually haven't spent much time in their early days writing history; and then later when their successful people look back and try to figure out what their early history was, it's difficult to do, because they don't have the evidence.
When I was in college, I went to Occidental College in Los Angeles; I had some very good friends among the students; others that I knew casually; there was one fellow there I have a dim recollection of; at the moment, I don't even recall his name. I remember, though, seeing him around there and noticing him; I didn't particularly pay any attention to him; I don't ever remember speaking to him; I had the impression he lived in Pasadena, but beyond that I remember nothing about him. I'd been out of school 15 years, and I read that a certain man had made a contribution of I think 600,000 dollars to the Republican party; and the Senate was questioning whether there was some dishonesty involved over some oil deals he'd gotten into or something; the man was in the headlines, in the papers, quite prominent; and I found in one of the references to him that it mentioned that he had been at Occidental College and gave the date, which would be just the time I was there, and I had this very slight recollection.
Now if I, at the time I was there, had known this was a man who was going to be so prominent 15 years later, I probably would have talked to him a little. I probably would have written in a diary that I had met such and such an important fellow that day; described him, what he looked like; paid a little attention to him. I didn't pay the slightest attention to him. 15 years later he was very prominent; and anybody there who had known him during that brief period, 15 years later when he was prominent, anybody who knew him would be apt to say to a friend, "Well I knew that fellow when"—and tell what you knew about him.
Back in 1920, I did a little canvassing for Hoover, President of the United States, and I remember people said, "Oh, I had a cousin who knew him when he was a boy. She said that fellow is going to be president of the United States someday." Well, I told my mother. She said, "Every boy has that said about him when he is a child." That proves nothing. But these people remembered it with great pleasure. What they said about a man who was not prominent then.
Well, what I mean to say is, you don't realize the important things; you don't write them down. There are thousands of things you come in contact with of no importance; perhaps there are three of great importance. Later on, you look back and try to remember them.
Now just to show how, what important things we forget, who is there here of our juniors, who can tell us a lot of where you yourself—over the last three centuries—where your blood came from. What is your ancestry? Where did you come from anyway? How do you come to be in existence? Who is there here that knows quite a bit about these facts? Who is there? Somebody just at random. Don't any of you know anything about your ancestry? You just showed up out of the sky? Well, Mr. Myers, did you raise your hand? Oh, fine; Mr. Myers will tell us where he came from, back to the time of Napoleon.
Well, all right, let's hear it, would you rise please Mr. Myers? How does John Myers come to be in existence? What was your father's name? (David K. Myers) Where was he born? (Illinois). When? ([??]) What is your mother's name? ([??]) Where was she born? (Edinburgh) All right. Now there are two people: one from Scotland, one from Illinois. Some way they came together and the result is we—no, we're not through with you yet. We're a long way from Napoleon's time. Now your father, how did he come to be in existence? What was his father's name? (John Andrew Myers). Now what was his mother's name? (Margaret Rohrer) Well, we're just back two generations and we have a lot of I-don't-knows. You see, he has two parents, he knows them; he was four grandparents, he's not sure of the full name of all of them, nor when they were born. He has eight great-grandparents and how many of the eight did he name? Then there are 16 in the next generation, how many of them can you name? Then there are 32. Well, most of you probably couldn't go back as far as Mr. Myers. But when you think of it, for every one of you, the most important thing in the world is how you come to be here, where you came from; and you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16, 32, and so on, and I defy anybody to name the 32 ancestors. Yours would have probably lived in the 1800s, tell where they were born and when, even give their names, and going back much further is just completely impossible.
Well, that's the way it is; people disappear from sight, even very important people; they just completely disappear; we don't even know they existed; we don't know anything about them, and yet they may be our ancestors. We just know nothing about them; and how then would we expect to know full details about the history of the world between 50 A.D. and 110? Suppose you had only 4,000 Christians in the world. How would you expect to know their names? Where they came from? Or much about them? And which of those were fated to be very important people 30 years later? Nobody would've bothered to write this information down. So that it is very natural, in any period of the world, that on account of the lack of stimulus to write history, the great bulk of facts are forgotten and then later people go back and try to collect them.
I was reading the other day about a man who had a farm he wanted to sell near Detroit. This was about 80 years ago, I guess. The farmer said "Well, you know, William and John are getting well established. They've got a nice little farm, they're doing well." But he said "Henry, I'm afraid he'll never amount to anything; he's like a rolling stone, going to this and that and the other thing; he did a fool thing; he put some kind of an apparatus on a carriage and made it go without a horse on it."
He says "Henry will never amount to anything." Today William and John are completely forgotten. Any scrap of information about Henry, people are tremendously interested. But that's how mistaken his own parents were as to who is important. And you look back, and most people don't have the time to look back; or the interest, to try to figure out these details of just a few years ago. So they're lost. So it is not at all unnatural that, between the time when there was a little group of people going out to preach the gospel and the time when there was a great multitude, in between there'd be very little written down to tell us anything about what happened.
As
a matter of fact, we don't know a great deal about the Christian church until
we get to 315 A.D. After that we have a tremendous lot of information. We have
quite a bit the century before, and very little even from 100 to 200. But from
50 to 110 our information is practically nil, aside from what is in the NT
Well, now, the third reason c—you don't need a third reason, these two are
enough—but the third is a present in addition, and that is:
c. The
Expectation of the Soon-return of Christ. And that is something which is
easy to prove, that up until the time of Constantine—300 AD—the Christians were
expecting Christ to come back almost any time and set up His kingdom on earth;
and as a result they were busy getting all the people they could to believe on
Him; and be looking for Him, ready to meet Him when He came. They weren't
worried about keeping track of what happened; for when He comes back here He'll
remind them of anything they wanted to know. So during those years we have very
little effort to remember where things happened, important places, and all
that. This was an added thing that entered in, to have this a period of very
little evidence.
2. Why had God allowed such a gap in our knowledge? What I tried to make clear is that this gap in our knowledge is a natural thing. It's a thing we would expect; it's the regular thing that takes place with organizations before they get big and strong; that there is an almost complete gap of knowledge; it's the ordinary thing that happens.
I saw in Hungary, in Budapest, a statue, the only statue in my life I've ever seen that was dedicated to anonymous; but this statue is to anonymous; and the reason is that the early history of Hungary was written by a monk; and all we know about the earliest history of Hungary is this history this monk wrote; but the first few pages of the history were torn off; we don't even know the name of the monk; so they call him anonymous; and they made a statue to anonymous—that is the unknown writer of the early days of Hungary—because the first pages were destroyed and nobody knew. And there are many things later that happened the same way. A few pages get lost and we just don't know anything about it. We can only fill in by imagination. So it is natural to have gaps in our knowledge, particularly in the early days of any country, of any movement, of anything.
But God didn't have to allow such a gap. God could have caused that Luke would have said to Timothy, "Please take up the history where I stopped, and go on and write an inspired history," and Timothy could have said the same to one of his successors, whose names even we don't know. And God could have caused an inspired history of the Christian church to be written from the time of the apostles right straight up to the time of Constantine. But the Lord did not do that. Why didn't He do it? Well, there we can only guess, we have no definite statement. But we can make a mighty good guess.
The Christian church is not founded, as McSorley says, upon an organization—a continuous organization—which traces back to its beginning. It is not. It is founded upon a book; and we have the book. We have the book which gives us what God wants us to know as the foundation of our beliefs; and that book God caused inspired men to write; and he caused the book to be kept free from error, and to be preserved through the ages; so we have this book giving us what God wants us to have as a foundation of the church. But in the history of the church there's a big gap in the early days concerning history and we know practically nothing.
When somebody says we have a continuous organization going back to the beginning; and we can trust this organization to pass on these facts from one to another; they say here's an organization that goes right back, we can trust the organization. No. We have the book that goes back and we can trust the book, and the book gives us the knowledge God wants us to have. So church history is interesting, and we learn much from it; but to learn what we should stand upon in our Christian religion, we go, not to the church, but to the Bible which God kept from error as our foundation. We continue there at 8 tomorrow morning.
We mentioned 2, Why God allowed such a gap in our knowledge, and I just mention that one again. It is natural there should be very little evidence in the first century of Christianity. That is what you would expect. But God could have supernaturally intervened to change it, so we would have a full account; and I think it is reasonable to say that God would have done it so, if that was His will; that we should know what is truly Christian by seeing an organization which we could trace back to the time of the apostles; and know that what they have held and what they say today is what He wants.
But the fact is that God did not intervene supernaturally; but that He allowed things in this regard to take their normal course; and the great important facts about the first century of Christianity—aside from what He caused to be written in the book of Acts and in the Epistles—all of those other thousands of important facts, He allowed to simply slip out from man's memory, as would naturally happen.
The fact that He did not intervene to prevent this, didn't cause us to have either an inspired account of the events of that period, or at least good definite historical evidence; the fact that He allowed that to happen, is to my mind conclusive that the vital thing is not the organization; not the continuing body of Christians, all of whom are fallible, and sinful; but it is the book which He gave at the beginning, which gives us the knowledge He wants us to have; and that we are to relate ourselves back to that book, all the time, rather than through a particular group of people.
As the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America states, in its constitution adopted in 1789: "Synods and councils may err and have erred since the days of the fathers." In other words any group of human beings may be mistaken. It is only God who is altogether dependable, and His word that is altogether trustworthy.
So
much for number 2 here, I did not give any sub-points under it because there
was just one reason; and I hope you all have that; I'm not stating it as part
of the outline, merely discussed; and I hope you have the answer. It's not a
divine statement; it's not an infallible declaration; simply my judgment on the
matter, but as a judgment I think it's very reasonable.
3. Traditions about the Apostles. Now during this period of little evidence, we know that there must have been Christians who were very busy. We know that from what we will learn of the next century. From the results, we know that things must have been happening; but what were they? The book of Acts tells us the beginning of what Peter did; it tells us what Peter did up to about chapter 12. And then it hardly mentions Peter any more. But it tells us about what Paul did; but after all, there were ten other apostles, what were they doing?
Well, I will read to you a word from McSorley simply because it is rather nicely stated here, that's all. I think what you find in him on this point you'll find in almost any other church history, perhaps not all in one place like it is here. He says here: [McSorley, An Outline History of the Church, p 27] "Outside of the account given in the Acts, there is little reliable information about the missionary labors of individual apostles." There we have a footnote: "The gap has been filled by apocryphal histories which must be read with great caution, as many of them were written by the Gnostics for purposes of propaganda. These apocrypha, however, do sometimes contain an historic kernel." That is to say, there are books which were written one or two or three centuries after the time of the apostles purporting to be the acts of this apostle, or the acts of the other, telling about where they went, what they did, but you can tell that they're purely imaginary. We can put no reliance in anything in them. That doesn't mean to say they may not contain some true statements. People may have passed on by word of mouth some true facts about certain individuals; and these may have gotten into the apocryphal books; but nobody knows which statements were true. These apocryphal books are just simply not reliable, they're much too late. So that all we know about the apostles is what is in the book of Acts, and what we can gather from the Epistles. McSorley says, [ibid.] "Outside of the accounts given in the Acts, there is little reliable information about the missionary labors of individual apostles. Dim traditions say that St. James the Greater carried the faith to Spain, St. Philip to Phrygia, St. Thomas to Parthia, St. Andrew to Scythia (Southern Russia), and St. Bartholomew to India, and that all the disciples except St. John suffered martyrdom. With regard to the Blessed Virgin, there are two traditions, one of which says she died in Jerusalem about the year 45, surrounded by the Apostles; the other that she accompanied St. John to Ephesus and died there at a later date." This was written two years ago [© 1961]. I wonder if he would say that now, because the Pope now says that Mary went to heaven, that her body was taken to heaven, but he says nobody knows whether Mary died in Jerusalem or whether she died in Ephesus. Well, I guess the Pope doesn't need that evidence; he doesn't know where she died, but he does know that she went to heaven; and he doesn't know whether her body was taken to heaven without dying or whether after she died her body was taken to heaven, but he knows it was taken up.
Well, that's a rather scanty sort of knowledge; but this fits with the facts about that theory—we know very, very little about it. Think of it—even the mother of Christ. Aside from all Roman Catholic superstition about her, she was a wonderful woman, a godly woman, a woman whom God chose to be the mother of Christ; and yet they did not recall where she died. What happened to her for certain? There's one tradition says she died in Jerusalem, and the other that she accompanied St. John to Ephesus and died there. We don't know. They just completely forgot what became of her. It simply shows how little evidence we have. Probably at the time, everybody knew. Well, what's happened to the mother of Christ, where is she? Is she still living? No, she's gone up to Ephesus I believe. They might hear about it but nobody bothered to write it down, and we just don't know.
There is a large group of people in south India who call themselves Thomas Christians, from the tradition that St. Thomas went to India. Did St. Thomas start a church in India and people remain in it till the present day? Or did people in the middle ages who became Christians in India, on the tradition that St. Thomas went there, call themselves Thomas Christians? We do not know what happened—what happened to any of the apostles except James who was killed in Jerusalem. And Peter, we don't know for sure what happened to Peter, nor what happened to Paul after the end of Acts. There is a tradition that he was killed in Rome, but it is tradition; it is not certain but highly probable. I would guess it's highly probable Peter was killed in Rome, but it's not certain. We don't know. The only ones we know about are James who was killed at Jerusalem at a very early date, and Paul who was beheaded at Rome, and John we have a very strong tradition that he went to Ephesus and he died in Ephesus, whether as a martyr or whether he died a natural death we don't know. The facts were just forgotten, we just don't know.
I was reading McSorley here, not with the idea that we should pay particular attention to him; but he sticks simply to the fact that it was believed, a century or two after this, that the apostles had widely separated; they were scattered widely in the course of events. But just where each one went, and just what happened to them, we don't know. The knowledge has been lost. So that the fact is, that there are traditions, but most of them—we just don't know, whether they are true or not.
I was amazed in 1929 to visit my father's last surviving brother, the last surviving member of his family; his sisters were then all dead; his brothers were all dead, except his little brother. And now he was an old man in Los Angeles; and as I talked with him, he mentioned that his grandfather had been in India. He said his grandfather from Scotland had been a soldier in India; he had lived there for a time; and then he had lived in Canada. Well, I knew that he had lived in Canada; I never even knew that he had been in India. But I remember my father went to Lucknow High School in Canada; the name Lucknow must have been brought from India, because it's the name of an important place in India; and that fits in with the tradition. But there is my great-grandfather; and this very important part of his life I never even heard of till thirty years ago, I don't know any a further details of it now. When my father was a boy, it was probably very important and probably talked about, but gradually it just disappeared.
And
so all these details from this century just disappeared from sight and, while
there are stories about the apostles, they are mostly imaginations of a later
date.
4. I Clement. I mention him here because he barely gets into the first century. There is, we will later speak of—you don't need to pay attention to it particularly now, we will later speak of the fact—there is a group of early Christian writings, which we call the Apostolic Fathers, in view of the belief that these were written by men who had known the apostles; and so they called them apostolic fathers. Of these books, there is only one which is generally believed to be written before 100 A.D.—probably about 95 or 96 A. D.—The First Epistle of Clement. I will assign it to you later, but I want just now to mention its place in the history. As you see, it is 30 years after Paul came to Rome when Clement writes this letter.
Now this letter of I Clement is a letter that is filled with quotations from Paul's epistles. It is evidently by a man who is thoroughly familiar with them. He is writing on behalf of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth; and he is rebuking the church of Corinth for divisions and dissensions and difficulties in the church of Corinth. It is a good pious letter which carries on much the same sort of advice you find in Paul's letter to the Corinthians. He says he is writing on behalf of the church at Rome. He never mentions himself in the letter; nor says anything that tells you about himself or about the history of Rome at the time; beyond these particular disturbances to which he refers.
Most scholars agree that this is a genuine book; it comes from about 95, 96 AD; written by this man Clement, who would seem to have been the bishop of church at Rome; the head, the leading man in the church at Rome at this time. There are other letters, such as 2 Clement, of which there is hardly anybody who believes they're genuine. But Clement's name became quite famous at that time. There are all kinds of stories about him; traditions about his birth and his upbringing and his background; all of this purely imaginary. Nobody knows much about him, except that from his letters we gather that he was a godly man in Rome; he writes this letter to try to get the Corinthian church to settle down and be more orderly; to put their attention on spiritual things instead of being mixed up in all these squabbles that were bothering it; it's a fine letter, but it's certainly not an inspired work; nobody thinks it is part of God's word. It shows us active Christian life going on just before 100 AD in Rome, but it doesn't tell us anything much about history.
One thing that is noticeable in it is that Clement, who is usually considered to have been bishop of Rome, does not in any way express a declaration of authority by which he authoritatively orders the church at Corinth to do something; nothing of the kind; but he does speak on behalf of the church at Rome, of Christians at Rome. So McSorley says the tone was truly papal. Well, that's a matter of judgment, but when you find that he does not claim to have authority himself to give an order, it seems to me that is pretty far removed from the papal tone today. So much for I Clement.
I
perhaps should have mentioned that most that we know about Christian history
about this time—most that is guessed about it, most of our guesses—come from
the Church History of Eusebius; and
that was 300 years later. Now after 300 years, he had no way of knowing back
that far except from what materials he could lay his hands on. So Eusebius'
history is a very important one, but when it comes to anything that isn't in
Acts or some other source, you can take it as very questionable, even if you
find it in Eusebius. So we'll go on to
5. Information
from Non-Christian Sources.
a. Josephus. Now Josephus was a Jew who was born about 37 AD. So he was a little boy in Jerusalem when the disciples were active there. In the time of the first persecutions he was a little boy in Jerusalem. Josephus was from a priestly family. There were considerable means in his family; he was able to spend his time trying to learn their background and their history. He went and listened to the Pharisees and tried to learn what their views were; he went to the Sadducees and saw what their ideas were. He had no use for the Essenes; these people that lived out in the wilderness, separated themselves from the temple; he had no use for them, but still he went out and spent a month or so out there to observe, see what they were like. He came back more disgusted with them than ever.
Well, Josephus, as a young man had a curiosity and an interest in conditions and he was a good observer. Later on, when the Jews revolted against Rome, Josephus was the general of the army in northern Galilee, fighting against the Romans. But when he faced a Roman army which was clearly several times as large as his, and very certain to completely annihilate them, he saw no point in the Jews fighting them, so he surrendered. And after he surrendered he became a good friend of the Roman general, Titus, who later became the Roman emperor.
He was with Titus in the Roman camp when Jerusalem was defeated in 70 AD. Jerusalem was besieged; thousands of people were killed; thousands sold into slavery; it was one of those terrible events in the history of the world. Well, Josephus blamed it to a large extent on the group of Jewish Zealots; they had felt that Messiah was going to come immediately and rescue them from the Romans; and no matter how bad things went in the war, they said, "The worse it gets the sooner the Messiah comes." So they didn't mind how bad it got; they just fought on desperately against the Romans; and in the end thousands of them were brutally killed. It was a most terrible disaster; the Temple was burned, the city was left in ruins; but Josephus was near there, because he was a close friend, by that time, of the Roman general.
And so the Jews have historically considered Josephus as a traitor; and they have thought very little of him as a man. But Josephus went to Rome then, and Titus was very, very friendly with him. Titus ten years later became emperor; they gave Josephus a nice home in Rome, and plenty of means; and he lived there until after 100 AD.
And Josephus wrote a history of the Jewish wars; he describes all the events connected with the war there; and it's a good history, considered to be a good reliable historical source. He observed things at first hand; he knew what he was talking about. And it's a good history, Josephus' Jewish War.
Now Josephus also wrote a history of the Antiquities of the Jews; and this is not good history because he hadn't been living in the early days; he has to rely on second-hand sources. Well, of course what he takes from the Bible is naturally true insofar as he believed the Bible. He gives the whole history of the Jewish race through the ages. And he tells what's in the Bible; only he enlarges on it—like when Saul stands and the Philistines are coming, he has Saul make a soliloquy like Hamlet did, "to be or not to be." "Shall I kill myself? Shall I let the Philistines seize me? What shall I do?" He tells what Saul thought. He had a good imagination; and his imagination may be in line with facts or may not. It's not historical evidence. So his history of the Jewish antiquities is not an added source of evidence to us. What he got from the Bible is naturally right from the Bible, and what he added is just his imagination, he had no other source.
Then about 95 AD, there was a Greek teacher of rhetoric in Alexandria, Egypt, who wrote a most scurrilous attack on the Jews; it was one of the most rank, wicked, anti-Semitic writings that has ever been written, attacking the Jews in most terrible language; and Josephus in Rome wrote an answer to it, which is called Against Apion, because Apion was the rhetorician who had written this scurrilous book. Josephus writes an answer to try to show that the attacks on the Jews are not proven. And in this book he tells about the different sects of the Jews and their viewpoints, and their loyalty to the Bible.
He says that though there are many different books that have been written by the Jewish people, none of them could be put in the category with the 24 books of the OT; which he says are the Word of God, and no Jew could add to or take away from; and every Jew from his birth considered it as the Oracles of God. It gives us, in this Against Apion, a great deal of excellent evidence as to the viewpoint of Jews of that day, because Josephus was a Jew and was familiar with them.
Now we're naturally interested in whether Josephus is a source for early Christian history; and the answer is that he is not. He was brought up as a boy in Jerusalem when the disciples must have been active there; and he was in Rome, when Christianity was beginning in Rome.
He made no reference to the Christian movement or the Christian church, and that is generally considered to be because of fear; this is the time when Domitian was persecuting Christians, and it may be that he thought he'd better play safe so nobody would think he had anything to do with the Christians, by not mentioning the Christian faith.
On the other hand, he may have thought it was a movement, say, like the Jehovah's Witnesses of today; something that was very active but that probably wouldn't last or amount to much, so why bother to mention it in his history? We don't know. But the fact is that he's not a help in history on these things.
There are three points at which he is of interest, but it is not anything new. He tells about how Herod killed St. James in the persecution of Jerusalem. That is so. Now that we already have in Acts. Of course, it's interesting to have this corroboration of it by Josephus. [student] The writings of the apostles which God intended to be part of the Word of God, like what Paul wrote, were carefully preserved; but if the other apostles wrote letters—which we don't know whether they did or not, but if they did—the people simply took them as temporary letters, not as God's Word, and didn't bother to make special efforts to preserve them. And after a while the paper would just disintegrate and go to pieces. While the letters of Paul which they knew, and 1 and 2 Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John, they knew were part of God's Word, they copied with great care. There were many copies.
Josephus, on the other hand, was a man of means; he was living in Rome, writing these works for general distribution Probably he had a factory, where 50 slaves would sit, and a man would read from the book, and the 50 slaves would copy, making 50 copies. These were probably made on excellent material and distributed around. And they were not, in the early days, part of the Christian movement. But he was a literary man interested in getting his writings distributed. This was in a different category. The Jews, who considered Josephus a traitor, did not preserve his writings. They have not been preserved among the Jews at all. There is a work called Josiphonus, which is evidently a recasting of part of Josephus by the Jews, putting in all sorts of statements which were different from what Josephus said, but fit with their ideas; this was preserved through the middle ages by the Jews. But Josephus was not preserved by the Jews. But his writings were there among the pagan literature; and when Christianity became dominant, Christians copied it and kept it as an interesting history of the Jewish wars and of those things.
So Josephus was preserved; and in Josephus we have long detailed history; and it's very valuable, particularly the history of his own land; and he mentions the fact that James was killed by King Herod; and you know that that's mentioned in Acts; and he wrote from Rome, being on the ground, seeing it. Well, if he knew that, he must have known a lot more about the Christian movement; because James was killed for being a Christian there, by King Herod. He must have known more about it, but he doesn't mention it. There's one other thing the mentioned; he mentions John the Baptist. He doesn't mention any relation of him to Christianity, but he mentions John the Baptist as a very good man, who was killed by Herod, and he tells a little detail about it. Then there is also a statement in Josephus, which is a very strange statement. In his Antiquities of the Jews, he says this,
[Quote Antiquities Book XVIII (Complete Works, 1905, p548) "Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man—if it be lawful to call him a man—for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him ; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day."]
Now that is a very remarkable statement; and any book that you would pick up, maybe a century ago, maybe even 50 years ago, of testimony to Christ, will quote Josephus' testimony to Christ. Until the 16th century, it was accepted by all Christians as an accurate statement about Christ. Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and most say that it is not original; it was inserted into Josephus' work.
Personally, it is very hard for me to believe Josephus ever would have written such a statement. Because if he said that Jesus did great miracles and was raised from the dead, and was the one the prophets pointed to, he should have become a Christian; and then his history should have told about the spread of Christianity; and when he ignores all that, then to say, simply mentioning about someone at that time, that Jesus was raised from the dead and that he did these wonderful works and he was the Christ, well, it just doesn't seem sensible. I mean it's inconsistent. He should either not say this, if he didn't believe in Christ; or if he did, he should say more and show that he actually was a Christian himself.
[student] Yes, it is possible. The fact is, we don't know. There have been those who were quite sure Josephus wrote it; there have been those who are quite sure he did not. And I mention this because of the difficulty in it; and all of our manuscripts of Josephus are from the 11th century or later. We have no copies of Josephus preserved earlier than the 11th century AD. And all those copies were preserved in Christian hands; the Jews did not preserve copies of Josephus, but every single one of these copies that we have has this statement in it, every single one. So some say, "Well, every copy has this, so it's doubtless original; Josephus doubtless said it." Others say, "No, they were all found in Christian hands; doubtless, some Christian put it in; and it would be contained in all the copies." While some hold a third view—which seems a more reasonable one—that Josephus did mention Christ, but that he didn't say a great deal about it; that a few words were put in here and there, such as believing in the fact of the resurrection, and belief that he was predicted by the prophets; that two or three of those statements might have been inserted by a copyist, or might have been written in the margin by a copyist, and then copied into the text by the next one; something like that may have happened. We just don't know.
But
at any event, whether this is a testimony for Christ or not is an interesting
question which people hold different views on, but it does not tell us anything
about church history; Josephus gives us no information about the developments
in the early church in addition to what is contained in Acts.
b. Suetonius on Claudius. Now this is a very, very slight thing, but yet it is the earliest about Christians we have, this reference from a pagan source to Claudius. It is this statement in Suetonius' Life of Claudius. Suetonius lived from about 75 A D to 160 AD. He was a Roman historian. He was secretary to a Roman Governor named Pliny. Suetonius was one of the three best authorities on the history of the Roman Empire in the first century.
In his writing on the Emperor Claudius—now you remember Claudius was the one who preceded Nero—he makes this statement: "Since the Jews were continually making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius expelled them from Rome." Chrestus is usually thought to be Christ. And so at first sight this says that Christ was agitating the Jews in Rome, and the result was that Claudius expelled them. Well, of course, that's not it. But this is what Suetonius said.
Most
historians now think that what it points to is this: as early as the time of
Claudius, there was dissension among the Jews in Rome about Christianity—about
Christ—and that this dissension was given as the reason for Claudius to expel
them. Now we don't know; it's a very strange thing. But it's a reference to
such a thing in such an early time, it's worth mentioning. Paul makes reference
to meeting Aquila and Priscilla who had left Rome when the Jews were expelled
by Claudius. So we have a statement in Acts that fits with this statement of Suetonius
that the Jews were expelled from Rome; but Paul doesn't say anything about its
having been on account of Christianity. What's more important than that is
c. Tacitus and Suetonius on Nero. Tacitus lived from about AD 60 to about 120. Tacitus wrote a history of the Roman emperors of the first century; then he wrote a history of Rome before that. He's one of our best sources for Roman history. And Tacitus describing Nero, says this, "But all the endeavors of men, all the emperor's largess and propitiation of the gods did not suffice to allay the scandal or banish the belief that the fire had been ordered. And so to get rid of this rumor, Nero hunted as culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty, a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Christus, from whom their name was derived, was executed at the hands of the populace under Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. Checked for the moment, this pernicious superstition again rose up, not only in Judea the source of the evil but even in Rome, that receptacle where everything that is sordid and degraded from every quarter of the globe, would there find some followers. Accordingly, arrest was first made of those who to confessed to being Christians. Then on their evidence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as of hatred of the human race. Being thus charged, besides being put to death, they were made to serve as objects of amusement; they were clad in the hides of beasts and torn to death by dogs; others were crucified; others set on fire to serve to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open his grounds for the display and was putting on shows and circuses, where he mingled with the people in the dress of charioteer, or drove about in his chariot. All of which aroused a feeling of pity even towards men whose guilt merited the most exemplary punishment; for it was felt that they were being destroyed, not for the public good, but to gratify the cruelty of an individual.
[Tacitus Annals XV, 44: ""But neither the aid of man, nor the liberality of the prince, nor the propitiations of the gods succeeded in destroying the belief that the fire had been purposely lit. In order to put an end to this rumor, therefore, Nero laid the blame on and visited with severe punishment those men, hateful for their crimes, whom the people called Christians. He from whom the name was derived, Christus, was put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. But the pernicious superstition, checked for a moment, broke out again, not only in Judea, the native land of the monstrosity, but also in Rome, to which all conceivable horrors and abominations flow from every side, and find supporters. First, therefore, those were arrested who openly confessed; then, on their information, a great number, who were not so much convicted of the fire as of hatred of the human race. Ridicule was passed on them as they died; so that, clothed in skins of beasts, they were torn to pieces by dogs, or crucified, or committed to the flames, and when the sun had gone down they were burned to light up the night. Nero had lent his garden for this spectacle, and gave games in the Circus, mixing with the people in the dress of a charioteer or standing in his chariot. Hence there was a strong sympathy for them, though they might have been guilty enough to deserve the severest punishment, on the ground that they were sacrificed, not to the general good, but to the cruelty of one man."]
Now here is Tacitus, a historian of about 100 AD, describing Nero, and he speaks in this terrible way about the Christians as being such an old superstition and haters of humanity and all that; which shows he knew nothing about Christianity, I suppose; but doubtless he reflected the common idea about them; but he describes the persecution by Nero, which shows how terrible and how wicked it was; but he says it gave rise to a feeling of pity and compassion for the Christians. So many people who had never heard of Christians before, began to have some compassion for them because of seeing the terrible way they were treated. And probably many of them began to wonder, "What is this, anyway?" and to look into it further, and found out more about it than Tacitus had.
Suetonius also refers to this, in a briefer statement. Suetonius wrote a Life of Nero, and here's what he says in it; he says, "in Nero's reign, many abuses were severely punished and repressed, and many new laws were made. A limit was set to expenditure; the public banquets were reduced to gifts of food; the sale of cooked food in taverns was forbidden, except for beans and vegetables, whereas formerly every kind of delicacy was offered. Punishment was inflicted on Christians, a class of men adhering to a novel and mischievous superstition. He put a stop to the pranks of the charioteers, who had long been long assuming the right of ranging at large and cheating and robbing the people. The Pantomimes and their companies were banned.
[Suetonius Lives of the Caesars, 1896 translation of Alexander Thomson, XVI p. 347-348: "Many severe regulations and new orders were made in his time. A sumptuary law was enacted. Public suppers were limited to the Sportulae {public entertainments}; and victualing-houses restrained from selling any dressed victuals, except pulse and herbs, whereas before they sold all kinds of meat. He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians, a sort of people who held a new and impious {convey idea of witchcraft or enchantment} superstition. He forbad the revels of the charioteers, who had long assumed a licence to stroll about, and established for themselves a kind of prescriptive right to cheat and thieve, making a jest of it. The partisans of the rival theatrical performers were banished, as well as the actors themselves. Note: Brackets are footnotes.]
So
Suetonius feels that, although Nero was a wicked man, and did a lot of cruelty,
yet he did some good things such as putting a stop of this superstition of
these Christians, and it shows how little Suetonius or Tacitus knew about what
Christianity was; but it does show that they recognized its existence as a
movement which even the emperor had to pay some attention to. And that's about
all that we know from these sources about the first century, up to the very end
of it. This was c, Information from non-Christian Sources. Next is
6. Information on Domitian's Persecution. The emperor at the very end of the century was Domitian the son of Vespasian. He was a bad emperor; not as bad as Nero, but a man who was generally disliked for his sullenness and his cruelty; and a Roman writer of a century later tells how Domitian banished his own cousin, because of his atheism and his having adopted the customs of the Jews. But Eusebius says that this man who was consul of Rome at the time, and his daughters, were exiled in consequence of testimony borne for Christ.
Now you see that's very little evidence; but the Roman writer mentions Domitian had exiled his own cousin for superstition and atheism, and having adopted Jewish practices. But 200 years later, Eusebius, when he writes his history, records that the man was a Christian, and that's why he was exiled. We don't know much about Domitian's persecution. Domitian would seem—not to have persecuted the Christians as such—but to have been afraid of any sort of a thing that might threaten his absolute power; and he was especially afraid of any kind of secret society; so when the Christians would meet privately for a service and for observing Communion, Domitian was afraid it was a plot or conspiracy and tried to break up all sorts of meetings like that. He allowed no meetings of any private sort that might be conspiracies against him.
Domitian's
persecution probably didn't involve killing many people, or didn't affect the
rank and file much, but a few prominent people who had become Christians, their
opportunities were cut down by Domitian; and many thought there might be great
danger ahead, the way he was acting. Dio Cassius is the source of information about
his life—the third of the great Roman historians of this early period. He lived
about a century later. He is not as near the times as Tacitus or Suetonius, who
tell us nothing about this. Now B was the Period of Little Evidence.
C. The Concluding Summary. This is just a concluding summary of the church in the first century. All we really know about the church in the first century is limited to what we have in Acts, what we have in the epistles, and these few statements by Suetonius and by Tacitus, that's all we know about the church in the first century. Now Eusebius, writing 200 years later, gives us many other details. But we can't be certain of anything there. If they fit in with these things, they're quite probably true; if they are in addition to them, we don't know. Because Eusebius is 200 years later, there's been all sorts of upheaval and turmoil in between; opportunities to destroy or lose the evidence; and we just have no further knowledge about them. We have to take later statements and on the basis of them make guesses of what happened that first century.
Now we could make a lot of guesses and they'd be pretty good guesses, but I think it's better for our purpose to go ahead and see what we find later; then you could carry back in your imagination what must have happened the first century to produce what we find later; instead of our telling you now what we infer from what happened later on. But this break in our knowledge is an important thing to realize; when somebody comes along and says to you, "Oh well we must do it this way; this is what the early church did; why look, one of the early fathers said so-and-so; there's proof." Well, you ask what the date of that early father was, and you find it's 180 AD; just say to him, "That's 150 years after the death of Christ; how much do you know from your own knowledge of what happened in the U. S. in 1810, 150 years ago?" He knows nothing except what he reads in history books, nothing at all. And much of that is unreliable. And we have far greater sources of knowledge than what they had in those days.
It's
interesting to know what people thought 150 years after Christ, but to know
what they thought in the time of Christ, we have one source and that is the
Bible.
And we need background for that so we
have
A. The Roman
Empire.
And I'm placing this here because you have a sharp break, a change in the
character of the Roman emperors after 96 AD.
1. Nerva
(96-98).
After the death of Domitian, who had been emperor for 15 years, people were
disgusted with the way he had reigned; nobody desired to get somebody from his
family as next ruler; and the Senate chose a good man, who was a member of the
Roman Senate. Nerva was emperor for two years. As far as we know he was a good
emperor. He would be of no importance to us, having only reigned two years, if
it were not for the fact that he initiated something wonderful. He started a
new system. Nerva picked out a man who seemed to him to be ideally suited to be
good emperor. And he adopted him, as his son, though he was nearly as old as
himself. And the result was that this man whom he adopted became the next
emperor,
2. Trajan (98-117). Trajan was a great general; he carried Roman arms to its furthest point. The Roman Empire was larger under Trajan than it ever was before or since. He erected a great column in Rome; it went up four stories high; a great stone column with pictures of his warlike exploits on its sides; and you can see that column standing there today in Rome; and you can see the account of Trajan's great works on the side. Only on the top, it says Trajan's statue was there originally. There's now a statue of St. Peter shaking his keys out at the top of Trajan's column. But the column is still there today.
He was a great man, a good man; so good a man, so highly thought of, that in 600 AD, the Pope decided that such a good man as Trajan ought not be in hell; so he prayed and got him transferred to heaven. So according to medieval ideas, this Pope moved Trajan into heaven; the only pagan who ever got into heaven. And some of the Roman Catholic theologians were very skeptical about the Pope having had the power to transfer him; but it shows how highly Trajan was thought of, that that would happen.
Well,
now Trajan was a very good emperor; and when I read you his letter to Pliny,
you will see what a good man he was. Also how ignorant he was about
Christianity. At this point, I'm merely giving you the skeleton of the outline,
mentioning that Trajan was a good man, an able ruler, a fine fellow, a man who
tried to rule upon the principles of justice and right; and he carried out the
good practice of Nerva, picking out a worthy man to be his successor and
adopting him. So the man he picked out was
3. Hadrian
(117-138).
For 21 years Hadrian was emperor. He was a great traveler; he traveled
extensively through the empire; he took an interest in the welfare of the
empire, and also, incidentally, in finding souvenirs for himself. Hadrian also
adopted another man whom he thought would make a good emperor and on his death,
he was succeeded by
4. Antoninus
Pius (138-161).
I'm not asking you to memorize the dates of these men, or even their order; but
I think it would be good if you mark in your notes where they are, listing them
with their names in order; so then, as I discuss events in Christian history
and mention one of these emperors you can glance at it and know just where they
come in the line, so that you'll have that understanding. Antoninus Pius
adopted a man who succeeded him. His name was
5. Marcus
Aurelius (161-180).
He was a philosopher. The Meditations of
Marcus Aurelius have been read even within the present century and are
very, very highly regarded. Today his statue stands in front of the Capitol in
Rome. But Marcus Aurelius broke the succession. He was regarded as one of the
finest men who ever reigned as emperor, but he did a very foolish thing. When
somebody has set such a good example, it's a shame to abandon it. He had a son
to whom he was devoted; and did not adopt someone else, but made his son,
6. Commodus (180-192), emperor. And Commodus was a bad man. He ended the period of Rome's tranquility. The reign of the Antonines was the best period in the whole history of Rome; it was a time of almost universal peace. And many a man in human history has said he'd rather have lived then than at any other time in the world's history—in this second century—the reign of the Antonines. But Marcus Aurelius did not adopt a man; he put his own son in to succeed him; and his son was a degenerate, a man who was as bad as Domitian—probably much worse than Domitian—though not probably as bad as Nero. His name was Commodus. He reigned for 13 years, till people got so disgusted with him they killed him; and that ended the time of general peace and security in the Roman Empire.
Well, I won't be able to mention his successor till tomorrow morning.
We were looking yesterday at the first section, A, The Roman Emperors, and saw that the period of the Antonine emperors is the period which is considered by many historians as one of the finest times to live in world history; there was a longer period of general peace within a wide area than perhaps had ever been seen. There were wars on the borders of the Roman Empire, but within the empire there was peace during most of this time; and a law and order well conducted; there was considerable safety of travel, and of life. The emperors were—most of them—men who were seriously interested in the welfare of the people.
And
we noticed how this came to an end when Marcus Aurelius broke the system that
had been used—the emperor selecting a good man to be his successor; but he
appointed his own son. And the son proved to be a bad man; and it put an end to
this whole series in 193. And 193 brought an end, not only to this period, but
to the system; because after a considerable time of upheaval, the new emperor
who came in put things on an entirely different basis. Now this is 193, so it
comes within this century, but it introduces a new situation, different from
what existed during the 2nd century, and that continued through the third, so
I'm going to leave the details of the beginning of Severus's reign for a brief
discussion when we get on to the next century, but I just want you to have his
name because he reigned in this century.
7. Septimius
Severus (193-211).
Now I am not giving you a complete list of the Roman Emperors of this period
because I want to stop at 193; and Septimius Severus became emperor in 193.
There were three men who came between Commodus and Severus, but they are not
important as far as administration is concerned; it was a time of upheaval, and
Severus came in; he ruled for a long time, so I'm not bothering you with their
names. We'll say a word more about that later. We're interested in the second
century now, so we go on to look at the beginning of this century.
B. Pliny's Correspondence with Trajan. Fifty years earlier there had been a man named Pliny [the Elder], a naturalist, a man of great wealth, and a man who was a very outstanding writer. He is not of interest to us from the viewpoint of church history, except for his nephew, Pliny the Younger, the man we're going to speak about now.
Pliny the Younger inherited his uncle's wealth and had the same interests in scholarly pursuits that his uncle did. He was a man of high character, and he was a close friend of Trajan the emperor. So Trajan sent Pliny as governor of Bithynia, a section of Asia Minor. Pliny went out as governor to Asia Minor to this section of Bithynia; and he was anxious to govern just right in every way; he carried on a correspondence with Trajan which has been preserved. We have the letters that he wrote to Trajan, in which he asks Trajan's advice about certain matters. And we have Trajan's answers to him.
Now except for the very brief statements about Christianity we have already looked at, by Suetonius and by Tacitus, and the letter of Clement, except for those, this letter from Pliny is the first extensive reference to Christians; it is the first from any pagan source. And even from Christian sources we have nothing earlier than this, except for one letter of Clement's. You see, that is a long period of ignorance of Christian history. We have practically no evidence on this long period, just the letter of Pliny; everything else we know about the period from Christian hands comes from writings later on, looking back, telling things they have heard or that they know personally; sometimes we don't know whether it happened 50 or 100 years before they write.
But here is something that is written about events in his own time that he saw, and it shows us the situation in 110—in Bithynia—and from it we can go back and try to get at what must have happened to produce this situation. Now I want to read you his epistle 96, which he wrote; it's quoted in whole or in part in many books of early Christian sources and literature, because it was so important to Christians.
Here's what Pliny writes to Trajan:
["It is my practice, my lord, to refer to you all matters concerning which I am in doubt. For who can better give guidance to my hesitation or inform my ignorance? I have never participated in trials of Christians. I therefore do not know what offenses it is the practice to punish or investigate, and to what extent. And I have been not a little hesitant as to whether there should be any distinction on account of age, or no difference between the very young and the more mature; whether pardon is to be granted for repentance, or, if a man has once been a Christian, it does him no good to have ceased to be one; whether the name itself, even without offenses, or only the offenses associated with the name are to be punished."]
Here you have a governor of an important province, who evidently understands that it is a crime to be a Christian, but he doesn't just know why. And he's never had any part in prosecution of Christians, but he understands they're supposed to be prosecuted; so he's asking the emperor for advice and information on it.
["Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. There were others possessed of the same folly; but because they were Roman citizens, I signed an order for them to be transferred to Rome.
"Soon accusations spread, as usually happens, because of the proceedings going on, and several incidents occurred. An anonymous document was published containing the names of many persons. Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ—none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do—these I thought should be discharged."]
Now there's emperor worship at this time, quite clearly. They made supplication with incense and wine to the statue of the emperor, who was hundreds of miles away.
["Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.
"They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.
"I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it. It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is afforded." Source: Pliny and Trajan on the Christians"]
Now that's the letter that Pliny wrote to Trajan. In answer to that, in epistle 97, which was Trajan's to Pliny, he called Pliny by his first name; he says,
["You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it—that is, by worshiping our gods—even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age."]
Well,
there is the letter from Pliny and Trajan's answer. And so we'll put
1. Evidence of the spread of Christianity. Here we know very, very little, after the end of Acts about the spread of Christianity, and then about 60 years later—50 or 60 years later—we get this letter from Pliny which shows that in his province at one time the temples were practically deserted; people weren't offering any sacrifices, and many were considered to be Christians.
It shows a great extension and increase of the number of Christians in this area; so much that the Governor could not help being aware of the fact that it was such a strong force among the people of his day. Now we don't have any census figures—whether three-fourths of the people, or one-fourth, or even one-tenth were Christians—but at least it sounds like a very sizeable number when he says he found the situation such that the temples were largely abandoned and there were no sacrifices being made; but once he started in with vigorous measures, then they began to frequent them again.
Now, of course, it's altogether possible that there were many pagans who simply lost interest and became careless and uninterested in sacrifices and never went to the temple; and that when he started persecuting the Christians, they thought they'd better make sure nobody would suspect them of being Christians by going to the temple and sacrificing. We can't take this as meaning that Bithynia had been entirely converted or anything like that; but it does show that it really had spread to a very great extent in that area. It was a real factor to be reckoned with after 60 years of Christian work in that area.
And of course this is not evidence from any Christian about how many there were. It's easy for people to exaggerate. It's very easy. Many a time a person speaks of 300 people and says, "Oh, 1500 to 2000 people were there," and I think in all sincerity, exaggerate the size of the crowd; it's very, very easy to do.
It's
also very easy to exaggerate when you're naturally anxious to put your best
foot forward, and speak well of that with which you are connected. There is
nothing like that here; this is in opposition to it, so it is all the better an
idea of the extent to which Christianity—the number of Christians—had increased
in Asia Minor there by this time. But then,
2. Evidence of the Official Roman Attitude toward Christianity. We learn from this exchange of letters that it was understood to be a crime to be a Christian; but the Governor doesn't seem to have much idea why. All he knows is this is wrong, it's wicked; there's something wrong, but just what it is, he didn't know. But he understood it was a crime to be a Christian; and he must enforce the law against it; and so he proceeds to, and then he begins to try to find out what is wrong with it; and he doesn't find evidence of anything that seems criminal. So the only thing that he really shows a feeling against it is, that it may interfere with good order in the state; if people aren't worshipping the official gods, and especially, of course, if they won't bow before the emperor. He doesn't expressly state that, but that is the only thing that you see in his letter that seems to be a ground for opposition to the church. But he recognizes that it is wrong—we must fight it. That's the way traditions get going; once they're going, people follow them blindly, as you will find in our churches. It gets to be a tradition to do something in a certain way, in a certain denomination, or a certain church.
I heard of a pastor of a fine church up in New York City a few years ago, a very fine godly man; he was there many years, and when he died, the next man found that everything in the church had to be done just the way that he had done it; he couldn't move a chair on the podium three inches one way or the other; "Why Dr. so-and-so, he always had it this way; that's the way it has to be." It was custom; and this man—his successor—was a very fine Christian man; but he just found it impossible, because he couldn't do anything; everything had to be exactly like his predecessor, or people were just disgusted about it.
That's the way traditions arise, customs develop. And there in the Roman Empire, it was understood that it was a crime to be a Christian; but when Pliny tried to find out why, he admits here he didn't find any reason. He thought they would prove to be criminals—people doing wicked things—but the evidence all seemed to look the other way; they were bound not to do any crime, bound to be honest; so it's quite a testimony to what he found out, but also to combat the reputation Christianity had.
Now you notice how much he says about these anonymous reports; and Trajan says to pay no attention to anonymous reports. It is most likely that this is the result of the situation in Domitian's time; because Domitian was so afraid of somebody rising up and destroying him, and taking over, that he had a panic against the thought of any secret society or clubs or organizations which might develop into political opposition to himself. And the result was that in Domitian's time, many people saw a chance to enrich themselves by informing on somebody else. Naturally they got a reward for a report; someone would come and say, "Look at this wealthy man over here; here's proof that he is conspiring against the government and trying to destroy the emperor," and the emperor was convinced. He would have the wealthy man killed and give his property to the man who had informed on him. And so somebody who simply hated somebody else—had a grudge against them—they would inform against them; and this had evidently grown into quite a bad thing; and Trajan was determined to blot this out, so he said, "Nothing is to be done about anonymous accusations."
And then you notice how he didn't hold against anybody that they had been a Christian. If a man would give it up, he was relieved of all fault for it. Trajan said, "Just so they will worship our gods and show us they're not Christians, they get pardoned immediately." So we see the official Roman attitude here toward Christianity.
Now in the first century, it was wicked men like Nero and Domitian who persecuted Christians. They persecuted Christians; the good emperors seem to have done nothing to hinder them, as far as we know, in the first century. In fact, a Christian writer of 200 AD said in one of his writings that the emperor Tiberius proposed in the Senate that Christ's name be put on the official list of Roman gods, and added to the other gods so that anybody could worship him that desired. But the Senate didn't do it. Now that is a statement by a Christian writer 170 years after Tiberius' time. So probably it's just a rumor that he heard somewhere with no foundation in fact; but it does represent the attitude of the good emperors in the first century; they were very tolerant of anything that they couldn't see any harm to.
"These people want to worship Christ? All right. We'll put Christ's name up next to Mars and Mercury, less than Jupiter but more than the minor gods; it's perfectly all right to worship him so long as they're loyal to the state." But that was not done; no edict was passed, perhaps never was suggested; but it was their general attitude. It was the wicked emperors in the first century who persecuted Christianity.
In the second century the situation is reversed. In the second century it is the good emperors who are trying to maintain order in the state; they want to have a good strong central government and to maintain peace within the Roman area and protect it from outside threats; that feel that for this purpose they must have loyalty of the people toward the great central principles of the state; and they feel that the worship of the gods of the state is an important thing in maintaining law and order; and particularly the bowing to the emperor's statue and offering incense before him. It is a sign they wanted loyalty, and consequently they are persecuting the Christians; but they do it, Pliny says, not to punish but to reclaim, and consequently if they can persuade them to give up Christianity and worship the gods they're perfectly happy about it.
The
2nd century is not a century of great persecution for the Christians. There are
no widespread efforts to destroy Christianity during the greater part of the
2nd century; but there is a constant attitude like this: that anyone who is
denounced as a Christian, if he won't prove he isn't, may be killed or may be
tortured; and there are occasional cases of very severe persecution, and very severe
torture of individuals. But there's no tremendous effort to destroy the church
during the greater part of the century. Well so much for B, now we go on to C,
which comes also in this same year, 110, and which is a very interesting
subject.
C. Ignatius. Now the name of Ignatius is a name which to people who are students of Christian matters should be much more widely known than he probably is; because he is the first Christian writer, aside from the Bible, who can be definitely dated and from whom we procure extensive information about the general situation of the church.
Clement is a previous and earlier writer; Ignatius is ten or fifteen years after Clement; but Clement's writing says very little about the situation. Clement in his letters quotes essentially from Paul's epistles; he shows very plain understanding of Christian doctrine; he is dealing with a local condition within the church; but Ignatius shows us a little more about general world conditions of the time than Clement does.
Now the man Ignatius we know nothing about until 110. We have no reference to him from any earlier time. But we find in 110 that he is the Bishop of the church in Antioch; and I imagine all of you know how early the church was started in Antioch. This is the city in Syria, north of Jerusalem some distance, the city where Paul and Barnabas were when the Spirit said, "Separate me Paul and Barnabas." This is the church from which the first missionary expedition of which we have a definite record set forth, as Paul and Barnabas began their missionary journey.
Antioch is the place where the disciples were first called Christians. This is the first gentile church, at Antioch. Well, Antioch was the second largest city in the whole Roman Empire, so you see it was a city of tremendous importance. Rome was the largest and greatest; Antioch was next. And Antioch continued for the next three or four centuries to be one of the greatest cities in the world, second only to Rome in size and in general importance. You want to remember Antioch; we have many references to Antioch in subsequent events.
We find we have though no reference—after the book of Acts, prior to 110—to the church of Antioch. We have no way of knowing whether it had become fairly large or was still small. We know nothing about it; we don't know how long Ignatius was bishop there, except that according to Eusebius he was only the second bishop of Antioch; and at that rate he must have been bishop quite a long time. But in 110 he was condemned to be executed for being a Christian and ordered sent to Rome.
The
tradition was that he appeared before the emperor Trajan, and the Emperor
Trajan personally condemned him and ordered him sent to Rome for execution.
This is a tradition which most scholars today think is wrong. For one thing, it
doesn't seem to fit with Pliny's letter to Trajan that very same year. Now
that's not conclusive; it could be that time, but from what we know of Trajan
it looks like he did not go to Antioch that year, but five years later. It
seems unlikely that Trajan was there that year. So most scholars think it was
not Trajan who had condemned Ignatius, and had ordered that Ignatius should be
sent to Rome for execution. At any rate, the first we know about it, is after
he is condemned and is on the way to Rome; and on the way to Rome he wrote
letters to various churches; and these are the letters which we have.
1. His letters. Now there comes a problem. The letters which he wrote were to seven different churches. These letters we have in two editions. In Greek, we have one edition that's about twice as long as the other; we have a longer form and a shorter form. And then we have a form in Syriac which only has three letters in it; and so some scholars say, "They're all a forgery; they're all a fake; they're late writings." Some say only the three in Syriac are genuine; the rest are spurious. Others say that the seven in the shorter form in Greek are genuine. But the general consensus of scholars seems to be that the seven letters in the shorter form are genuine. And that's what I'm going to assign you to read, in translation. You won't have to read the Greek unless you desire to. But a translation of the 7 letters in their shorter form, which Ignatius sent between his condemnation and his arrival in Rome.
Now in these letters Ignatius writes to these various churches. He exhorts these churches to follow the Lord to the end, and so on; he tells them what has happened to himself, and he urges upon them—sort of like a man in his last days—he spent his life working in the church in Antioch; now he is about to die; he sees the opportunity to spread his influence through all the churches by passing on his advice; and so we have these letters to these different churches from Ignatius, which most scholars now consider—a great part at least, to be genuine—and the view that is held by most scholars is that the 7 letters are all genuine, in the short form rather than in the longer form.
Well,
so much for what we know about him and his writings, which, you see, is not a
great deal. He probably had a long and useful life of which we know very
little. Just this little that we know of.
2. His idea of martyrdom. And this is a very interesting thing which we find in these letters—the attitude that Ignatius took toward martyrdom. Most of the writers of church history feel that his attitude is very, very much inferior to the attitude of a man like Paul, who looked forward calmly and with resignation to suffering for Christ if it be the will of the Lord. They feel that Ignatius had an attitude which was not a very healthy attitude in this regard. He longed for martyrdom. He felt that it was a wonderful thing to be a martyr; and if only he could be killed for the sake of Christ, how grand it would be. That is the attitude that he takes.
Now I personally feel that one might rather modify that view a little, by the realization that he is a man along in years who had been actively engaged in the Lord's service; and it isn't as if he had had this attitude all his life. After his long life of service, he may have felt that he would like to crown it with martyrdom, even as they felt that most of the apostles had done. That's only a guess on my part about it; but the fact is, we have no evidence. At any rate, that is the attitude which he showed.
Now here, he writes in the course of his journey to Rome; his epistle to the Romans which he wrote to the Roman church, on the way, so they would get it before he got there. He says, "I write to all the churches and impress on all that I shall willingly die for God unless He hinders it. I beseech you not to show unseasonable good will toward me. Permit me to be the food of wild beasts to whom it will be granted me. I am the food of God, ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found worthy. Rather, entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb and leave nothing of my body so that when I fall asleep I may be a burden to no one. Then I shall be truly a disciple of Jesus Christ when the world sees not my body. Entreat Christ for me that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to God. Not as Peter and Paul do I issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am a condemned man. They were free; I was even until now a slave. But if I suffer I shall be the freedman of Jesus Christ, and delight in Him as free in Him. And now being in bonds, I learn not to desire anything."
Now this letter, this section I have read to you, shows what you can also gather from other letters, his great desire to suffer martyrdom. But another interesting thing here, you learn that he felt that the Roman church would be able to intercede and save him, if they took a notion. It doesn't much look as if they were suffering much persecution in Rome. It looks as if some of the members of the church in Rome had sufficient influence with the governor that he was afraid that they could get him off, and he didn't want that. And of course, as one writer says, this looks very much against Trajan having personally condemned him at Antioch. You could hardly appeal against a condemnation by the Emperor. Nobody would have influence enough to do that; if he was condemned he would be condemned. But if a governor had condemned and ordered him to Rome, it might be that one of the Christians there was in a position where he could intercede to Trajan, or to one in higher office.
At
any rate, we don't know; all we know is what he says in the letter; but at
least he had the feeling that it might be they could get him off. And he didn't
want to; so he pleads with them not to. But this, his idea of martyrdom, you
find this of course in various writers of different kinds all through the
different histories, but it's interesting that right here in Ignatius, 110 AD,
you find it so very strongly expressed, Ignatius' desire that he might
personally, physically suffer for the sake of Christ. Then
3. His idea of the place of a Bishop. Now here is a thing we should give a bit of background to. You will find—as you go through your studies in Acts—you will find that in the church there were officers whom they called by two names; there were officers whom they called deacons, but in addition to them there were officers who were usually considered as a higher office; and these men are called by two names; sometimes they're called presbyters, presbouteros, and sometimes they're called episcopos, literally overseer. From the word episcopos has been derived the modern word bishop. The word presbyter, literally means elder; and Paul would begin one letter addressed to the people of a certain place, together with the bishops. He'll begin another one, together with the elders. Sometimes they will give the specification, call these leaders by the word presbyter, sometimes by the word bishop, but it never gives us one after the other, as if they were two different offices. And so most students of the NT consider it proven that bishop and elder are two names for the same office. The term elder describes his character, a man of experience, of discernment, an elder. Episcopos describes his function, of oversight over, the active watch of the ways in which they can be helpful to others in their Christian life, and to find means of getting rid of individuals who might be a harmful influence in the church. They were the official ones, though the same men had both names in Bible times. And the evidence is that there were several of them in each church. Now we have no further evidence whatever on the organization of the church until Ignatius; and when we get to Ignatius, we find that he calls himself the bishop of the church at Antioch, and he refers to the presbyters as men who were supporters of himself.
He says the bishop is like God, he has preeminent position; the people should obey him, you cannot be a Christian and not do as the bishop says. He says even as God sent the apostles, and the council of the apostles was doing the work that he sent them for, so the bishops have presbyters who assist him in his work, and do what he directs them to do.
And then he points out that there are also deacons. So that there are, in Ignatius' letters, three types of officers—not the two that we find in Acts—one having two names. But we find that the two names that are given to one office in Acts, have now become two offices. And of course it is very easy to guess how this development took place. In any organization that moves, there must be a head; and if a church was anxious to expand and move out and accomplish things, and also it had to take action when heresy came in, and people began denying the truth and changing it, as Paul finds when he wrote Galatians; and he says that he wished they were even cut off from fellowship. He says, "Though I or an angel from heaven should give you another gospel, let him be accursed."
You find in various epistles, there were people coming in—perhaps in all sincerity—teaching them that which is utterly destructive of the message the apostles had given; and they had to guard against it, or the church would be ruined; it would turn into something entirely different; and so it was necessary to develop a certain leadership; and one of the presbyters, or episcopoi as they called this name, assumed the supremacy in the local church; and by the time of Ignatius—in Antioch—the bishop in Antioch had the control of the leadership in the church. Well, now, Ignatius was urging these others to give the proper respect to your bishop; recognize that he is the authority; you cannot expect to be saved if you don't follow the bishop's orders. This is an attitude toward the power of bishops in the church which we find in Antioch—and we find in Ignatius' writing—that we have no evidence of whatever until this time.
And so this was a development which had occurred in 50 years, had developed in Antioch and maybe in some other places too, development of the power of the bishops in the church.
Now
the bishop, as Ignatius describes him, would be similar to a pastor today; he
is the head of a congregation. There is no evidence that Ignatius claimed any
power whatever over other congregations than his own; or that he admitted the
power of any other over him. He wrote to the Romans and he doesn't even suggest
in his letters to Rome that they have any authority over him; or that their
bishop had any authority over him whatever. There is no suggestion in his
letter of any power over the bishops from anyone but God. There is no
suggestion that another church had the right to exercise power over him. But
there is a great stress by Ignatius on the authority of the bishop, the head of
the particular church. Now you will read some of Ignatius' letters later and
you will see these statements which he makes.
4. His Idea of the Catholic Church. And here is something which is very little understood today. The first use we find of the term "catholic church" we find in Ignatius' writing. The word is not used of the church before that time. But it is used by Ignatius and used by other writers subsequently; we find that as used there, the term "catholic" has an entirely different meaning from what it has today when we speak of the Roman Catholic Church—entirely different. As the average person today thinks of the word Catholic, it means a particular denomination under the leadership of the Pope of Rome. That is certainly not what Ignatius means by it at all; because Ignatius showed no recognition in his letters of any particular prominence to the Bishop of Rome whatever, except as he thought every bishop had a place of great importance. And he showed no inferiority to the Roman Church in any way whatever, as far as other churches went. But as Ignatius uses the term catholic church—as it's easy to gather from him and from other writers—what he means by the catholic church is the body of Christians throughout the world who hold to the main fundamentals of the faith; that's what he means by the catholic church; the word "catholic" in etymology means all-embracing. It's the all-embracing church; it's the body of all the faithful; that is what he means by the catholic church. He means those people, whether they be in Rome or Antioch, wherever they are, who hold to the basic doctrines; who have not followed any of the heretical views, gone off into any direction, which Christians as a whole recognize to be un-Christian. And these, he feels, have a spiritual communion with one another; and he refers to it as the catholic church.
And the term catholic is used in that sense during the succeeding several centuries—in its original sense. He felt we are the true catholics; we are holding to the true doctrine of the Scripture; and we believe in fellowship with all true Christians throughout the world; we are the catholic church, and he would never speak of the Roman Catholic Church as just the catholic church, but always called it the Roman Catholic or the Roman church.
Now, personally, I never feel there's any point in fighting over terms. If one term gets ruined, let's take another one. The important thing is what we mean, not what term is used; except that I do detest the idea that some people are doing today, giving up the term fundamentalist because of how some people have used it.
Like one man said to me last month, "A fundamentalist is a man who handles rattlesnakes to show they won't hurt him." Of course that's utter nonsense. The word fundamentalist means a person who stands on the fundamentals; and personally I like it much better than conservative; I don't believe in holding to something just because people used to hold to it. There are plenty of things they used to hold to that are wrong.
I believe anything they used to hold to is worthy of examination before rejection. It has a right to be examined, to see whether we're going to hold it or not. But a word like fundamentalist, that means standing on the fundamentals of the faith, instead of putting your stress on the little incidentals and minor points, it seems to me is a good word, and I like it. But this word catholic, I don't personally feel any great zeal whether we should say, "Yes we are the true catholics," or whether we should say, "Well, they've got the word; let them have it, let's use some other word." But it is important that we understand what a word has meant at different periods, so we will understand what is written.
And so in the ancient writings, when they refer to the catholic church what they mean is the body of churches which have communion with one another, which consider one another as true churches of Christ, through our Lord; and it does not represent any allegiance to one particular church or one particular leader. But our evidence for the term begins with Ignatius. I say "our evidence" because, for all we know, there may have been a hundred writers between the time of the book of Acts and Ignatius, who used the word. We don't know, but this is the first place we find it. We don't find him introducing it, saying, "Let's use this word to mean this." We find him simply referring to the catholic church in a way that shows that it had become an established word at that time.
And when St. Augustine, 200 years later, who had followed Manichaeism—a very materialistic sort of a sect—for a time, then when he was converted we read that his mother Monica rejoiced that he had become a catholic; and she meant that he had come to see that the great fundamental doctrines of Christianity were the true ones, and that was what his life should be devoted to. So in studying ancient church history, it's good that we realize what the term meant as used then; and it's interesting to note that Ignatius was the one who introduced the term.
If you take all of ancient church history together, you will find that there were movements that swept across the world; they threatened to destroy Christianity because of their great strength, and they denied the fundamental doctrines as claimed by the Christians; and as against them, this word was used, that showed those who stood by the great central doctrines.
Now I can't read Ignatius' mind; nobody can tell what he had in mind. Ignatius has many good qualities, and some that don't appear so good to us; but Ignatius is a very interesting evidence for the situation of the Christian church at that time; and scholars have made great study of Ignatius' writings to see the quotations from John's gospel and John's epistles. In NT criticism, his epistles have been very useful in establishing the authenticity of some of the NT books in their early days. His writings are very important, for a number of reasons.
Now
we were looking at the end of the hour at C, Ignatius; and we noted about
Ignatius his attitude toward martyrdom; his attitude toward the office of a
bishop, something that had developed since NT times; and we noticed his use of
the term the catholic church, which, as far as our evidence goes, began with
him. We have no evidence of anyone using that term earlier, than he. Now we go
on to
D. The Apostolic Fathers. Now I must explain what we mean by a "father." The term originally came from Paul, of course, who referred to Timothy as his son in the faith; and it's a very natural thing for one who is a teacher of those who become his disciples, and who are tremendously influenced by what he gives them, to think of himself, in a very real sense, as their father.
So the term father came to be applied to Christian leaders; in the particular form of papa, it was applied to all the Christian leaders in early days; and that form came in time, in the Roman church, to be narrowed down to where it applied only to the Bishop of Rome. Of course that is a much later development. But the term father was used a great deal in writings which had been written by great spiritual leaders of an earlier period.
The books of the Bible we do not refer to as the fathers; they are God's inspired Word. They are written by apostles or by others whom God has designated for the purpose. But the writers after the apostles, the Christian writers, were referred to as the fathers until the end of the period of ancient church history. When ancient church history ended, and a large measure of anarchy and confusion swept over the whole of the western world, no one existed any longer who seemed worthy of being referred to as a father—that is no writings, for quite a while—and the result is that people ceased to refer to the writer of an earlier time as a father.
So today, the "writings of the fathers" is used as a technical term to refer to Christian writers after the apostles but during the period of the ancient church. They are always spoken of as the fathers; and you will find in some universities you will have a professor of Patristics, which comes from the Latin word pater, father. It is the study of the writings of the fathers; and there was a set of works published by the Benedictines, which you find in many libraries which is referred to as Patrology; that is to say, this is a set which tries to give all the writings of the people we refer to as fathers. It's a very poor set; all the important ones have had better later editions; but some of the less important ones are found only in that particular set.
In the days of the Reformation, people spoke about the fathers. By that they meant the Christian writers of ancient church history. Now there's a group of these whom we call apostolic fathers. That's a peculiar term which had come to be given to these writers. The theory of it is that the apostolic fathers are the fathers who knew the apostles. Actually, it's simply the earliest writings after the apostles. We call them the Apostolic Fathers. That is now a technical term.
A
technical term, as you know, is any term which is constantly given a specific
meaning which you wouldn't get just from the words. In this case, the term
Apostolic Fathers includes certain definite writings; I would like, first,
before mentioning them individually, to give
1. General Remarks. In general I would like to say this, that the Apostolic Fathers are writings with a considerable measure of variety, in the type of material; but all of them are very markedly inferior to the writings contained in the NT It is, in a way, as if God had said, "The Bible is given. I want people to realize the sharp distinction between that which is inspired of God and that which is separate from it. And so I will lead these godly men who write Christian writings after the Bible is finished; I will cause that they be men far inferior in their literary quality and in their general understanding of the actual writing of the Bible."
They're good men, and the writings were considered useful by the early church—some of them much more so than others; but it's easy to see how inferior they are to the Word in the Bible.
Now,
of course there are many other writings that are much finer than most of these
Apostolic Fathers later on; but they come much later, and there's a gap between
the end of the NT and the beginning of Christian literature that is really of a
high quality. Then also, of course, you realize there has been comparatively
little that has been preserved of Christian literature from early days. We've
noted earlier why little was written and also comparatively little preserved.
2. Early
Christian Literature.
I will briefly mention a few of these writings at this point, either naming
them for completeness, having already been touched on them, or just saying a
little about them and consequently putting them under this head. The first of
these I'll mention is
a. Clement. Now actually of course he doesn't belong in the second century, but in the first; but because he is called one of the apostolic fathers, I include him for completeness in this category.
There is the first epistle of Clement to the Corinthians we have read. Then there is also the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, which practically everyone agrees is not by Clement at all but someone later on putting his name on it. It's much inferior to the first epistle of Clement.
Very
little is known about Clement's life, but there were very interesting stories
imagined about him. He's quite a favorite character for romance, and people
just had all sorts of fanciful ideas as to who he was, where he came from, and
what happened to him. The fact is, we know practically nothing about him except
what we can learn from these epistles, and that isn't much. But from the
epistles you would learn that he was a godly man, a man who loved the Bible,
who saturated his mind with the Bible, a man who was a true Christian. And then
after Clement, we named
b. Ignatius. He is
considered one of the apostolic fathers. His writings all come from about 110
AD, when he was on his way to martyrdom. He wrote that series of epistles then;
and there is also a work called The
Martyrdom of Ignatius, describing his martyrdom. All this was accomplished,
you see, in a period of 80 years after the death of Christ; and Ignatius was
supposed to have known at least one or two of the apostles. He was doubtless a
man who had a great interest in the world in which he was; but he was just
forgotten; in fact if it weren't for his epistles we would know nothing about
him. And then,
c. Barnabas. I mention Barnabas here because I'm not going to take much time to say anything about him. There's a book which has been preserved from very early days, called the Epistle of Barnabas; and this epistle of Barnabas was sometimes even read in churches. It quite definitely is considered to be much later than the time of the actual Barnabas. Schaff says in his Church History that the so-called epistle of Barnabas must be after the destruction of Jerusalem because this is referred to in it as an accomplished fact. But he says it's probably before the close of the first century, and certainly before the reconstruction of Jerusalem under Hadrian in 120. So there you've got a big area, from 70 to 120. Somewhere in those fifty years this book was written. In view of that range of possibility I mention him here in the second century rather than the first.
The
Epistle of Barnabas is not a very fine work. It is a work by a man who is a
very real Christian, but who has rather fanciful ideas. It is essentially the
same subject as the epistle to the Hebrews, but far below it in depth and
originality. It was intended mainly for a particular class of Christians who
were in danger of relapsing into the Judaizing error. I may ask you to read it
later on. Next I mention
d. Hermas. This book which was called the Shepherd of Hermas is a peculiar sort of book; it was also read in early churches. It was very highly regarded but the authorship is unknown, and the date of writing is quite unknown. It must be fairly early; it had great esteem in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Schaff says to the Christians in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it had all the charm and the knowledge of the spirit world. It was even read in public worship at this time.
Some people thought that it was divinely inspired; by this I'm sure they didn't mean kept from error like the books of the Bible, but that the man was one whom they thought of as writing with special blessing from the Lord. But it is very inferior to the New Testament. It contains all sorts of visions and dreams which they get allegorical meaning out of. They are far inferior to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, both in literary merit and in theological stature and accuracy.
Schaff
says it is prosy, frigid, monotonous, repetitious, over-worded with uninteresting
detail, but animated by a pure love of nature and an ardent zeal for doing
good. One of these days you will have the joy of going into it, depending on
how much time we will have. There are other matters I want you to look into
that are more important. But the Shepherd of Hermas had quite a vogue in those
early days. So you should at least be aware of it, though today it's not
generally very highly regarded. Next
e. Epistle of
Diognetus.
Now this epistle to Diognetus seems to have been lost in early days. It's
rather strange that it's called one of the apostolic fathers because it's a
book that was preserved to us from ancient times. It was not remembered; it was
lost but it probably is quite early. Some assign it to the reign of Trajan, some
to Marcus Aurelius, some to the close of the 2nd century, maybe later than the
ones we've already mentioned. It is considered as a very fine work. The author
is unknown. This Diognetus is the man to whom it was written. It is a very
beautiful little work, presenting Christianity to Diognetus, an inquiring
heathen of high social position and culture who desired information about the
origin and nature of the religion of the Christians. It was unknown generally
in Christian literature until 1592, when it was published under the name of a
famous writer of the 2nd century whom we will notice later. But now nobody
believes it was by him. We will notice him later; his name was Justin Martyr.
But there's only one copy of this which is known, and this was destroyed by
fire by accident in 1807, and we now have no copy, no manuscript; but of course
we have printed copies made from that.
f. Aside on the NT Apocrypha. I think before going to 3, here, I will just take a minute about a matter which ought to be mentioned. I mentioned the inferiority of the apostolic fathers to the NT books. You will sometime come across something called the NT Apocrypha; they are not really a part of our church history, but we should know something about them, so I'm going to mention them here.
You will sometimes see publications of and hear reference to the NT Apocrypha. The word Apocrypha properly applies to the OT Apocrypha; these which are called NT Apocrypha, are books which are definitely inferior to the apostolic fathers. They are not highly regarded by anyone, I don't think, or ever have been. No church has considered them canonical. The OT Apocrypha are considered by the Roman Catholic Church as part of the scriptures; and they are fine books, though not inspired. But the so-called NT Apocrypha are books which claim to tell about the life of Christ—new gospels, some people let their imaginations run—we don't know just when such things were written or who wrote them—lives of Christ, stories of the apostles, and so on, Acts of this apostle, that one, and the other—and they're purely imaginary things, and most of them are very low scale intellectually.
For instance, they'll tell how when Jesus was a boy, how he took a bit of mud and made some birds, and then blew on them, and they flew away; and all the other boys marveled at him; and when Jesus went to school and the teacher started talking about A, the first letter of the alphabet, and Jesus asked what alpha really meant. And the teacher, not perceiving the depths of intelligence of the boy, called him impertinent for that, and told him to learn what he was told; and Jesus thereupon raised his hand, and the teacher fell dead. And all that sort of nonsense is in the NT Apocrypha.
Some people imagined that they were glorifying the Lord, in making him some sort of a strange wonder-worker who could do any kind of thing he felt like doing. He could do any fantastic thing he felt like, at first; but he didn't feel like doing such things, that's the difference. And they write things about some of the apostles. It's possible there's some true historical background to some of the stories they tell about the apostles in these NT Apocrypha; but most of it is so fanciful that it would be pretty hard to tell what there might be true from this great amount of pure imagination. So we don't even mention them among our histories of the church literature; but since you may come across them sometime and hear references to them, I wanted to be sure to mention them.
The OT Apocrypha the Roman Catholic Church considers part of the OT—seven books, and additions to two others. The so-called NT Apocrypha—it is my impression—they also consider, as we do, to be purely imaginary and pay no attention. It may be that some of the things mentioned in some of them they consider part of true tradition; perhaps some of these books of Acts that would fit with some of their thinking.
Well
then, with this aside about the NT Apocrypha—with which you should be familiar
even though it's not really part of our events of church history, here—we go on
to 3; and I mention this one of the apostolic fathers separately, because he is
one whom I have not yet discussed in our material, who is of considerable
importance in this New Testament study. His name is
3. Papias. Papias wrote a number of epistles and other works; and his works were known for a long time, but were all lost in antiquity. Consequently we have no complete work of Papias that has been preserved; and that leaves us unable to make a fair judgment of Papias. We have quotations from Papias in some later writings, and that is all that is preserved from what he has written. One of those writers is Eusebius.
We've already mentioned Eusebius as the church historian, of the time of Constantine; and Eusebius saw Constantine the great Emperor converted to Christianity; he gave the Christian missions free transportation throughout the empire and he lavished all sorts of things on them, doing everything he could to benefit the Christian church; and Eusebius imagines that the kingdom of heaven is just about to come here on earth, with the Roman Emperor a Christian. And under those circumstances he seems to have a great dislike for Papias, because Papias was always talking about the wonderful time that was ahead when the Roman Empire would come to an end, and Jesus Christ would return and would reign upon this earth.
And so Eusebius, disliking Papias' viewpoint, talks him down a great deal; he speaks of him as having a very narrow mind and a very weak sort of intellect; and he says that he believes all sorts of nonsense, and talks that way about him. Yet he does refer to Papias' statements about the origin of the gospels and so on, and considers them as highly important.
Papias was the Bishop of a town in Phrygia (that's Asia Minor), called Hierapolis. There is a tradition that he suffered martyrdom at about 155 AD. We don't know anything about that for sure, but that he did, that is the tradition. The tradition was that he knew St. John, St. Philip the evangelist, and others of the early disciples. That is the tradition about him, and he issued a book in which he tries to tell of what he had learned from these men. In a quotation Eusebius gives from Papias, he said,
["But I shall not hesitate also to put down for you along with my interpretations whatsoever things I have at any time learned carefully from the elders and carefully remembered, guaranteeing their truth. For I did not, like the multitude, take pleasure in those that speak much, but in those that teach the truth; not in those that relate strange commandments, but in those that deliver the commandments given by the Lord to faith, and springing from the truth itself.
If, then, any one came, who had been a follower of the elders, I questioned him in regard to the words of the elders—what Andrew or what Peter said, or what was said by Philip, or by Thomas, or by James, or by John, or by Matthew, or by any other of the disciples of the Lord, and what things Aristion and the presbyter John, the disciples of the Lord, say. For I did not think that what was to be gotten from the books would profit me as much as what came from the living and abiding voice." Source: Bible Hub.]
It
would seem then that Papias was tremendously interested in what he could hear
from people who saw the disciples; and he wrote five books called Explanations of the Lord's Discourses.
This book was still in existence in the 13th century, but it has now been lost.
There are no known copies of the writings of Papias; but there are quotations
from him in Irenaeus and Eusebius. Eusebius I've mentioned to you, from the 4th
century. Irenaeus is also from the 2nd century, but we haven't yet come to him
yet. He was a pupil of Papias. These have quoted from Papias at various points.
If we had his book, it would of course be of great value; but as it is, what we
know of it is what they say. We know much more about the next one.
4. Polycarp. A friend of Papias, he was the Bishop of the famous city of Smyrna, also in Asia Minor. He and Papias lived not far from each other and had much contact. We have very little evidence about him before his death, like in the case of Ignatius. We have a few references to him by Irenaeus and others, for he was of considerable importance. But of the actual writings of Polycarp that we have, there's only one, the letter to the Philippians. And this is a letter which he wrote to the Philippians after the death of Ignatius, and perhaps shortly before the death of Polycarp. He ends the letter with the words, "I write these things, brethren, not in arrogance, but because ye have requested me. For neither I nor any like me can attain the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul who was among you. And in the presence of the then-living, he actively and firmly taught the Word of Truth. Who also in his absence wrote you an epistle, from which ye may edify yourselves in the faith given, which is the mother of us all. Hope following after, and love to God in Christ, and to neighbors."
His epistle is a good word. Its value would about rank with I Clement, but the main reason why Polycarp is remembered is on account of his martyrdom. There is a work called The Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, which is considered a part of the writings of the apostolic fathers; and this writing claims to have been written by the church at Smyrna, and sent to the other churches, "The Church of God which sojourns at Smyrna to the Church of God sojourning at Philomena and to all the congregations of the holy and catholic church in every place, mercy, peace, and love through God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied."
And this letter then which was written to the other churches from Smyrna undertakes to tell about the death of Polycarp which it is now believed took place in 155 AD—the same year probably in which Papias may have been martyred; and in this writing they tell about how the persecution goes out, in that year very strongly, and the people were declared by the pagans and the natives to be Christians wherever the individuals were, and were burned publicly, and put before wild beasts; and one who was brought was a man named Germanicus, brought before the Roman Proconsul, who urged him to submit and sacrifice; but Germanicus boldly stood up, declared himself to be a Christian, and walked right over toward the beasts; and he called them to come and eat him up, showing no fear at all, but showing his joy in suffering for the name of Christ; and it made the pagans very indignant, and they cried out, "Let Polycarp be brought out!" They wanted him now, this one having shaken their plans a bit. Then there was man named Quintas, a prisoner; he stood up very bravely, but when he saw the beasts, he became afraid; he and some others submitted and offered sacrifice, and then they let them go.
But then the people were demanding, "Get Polycarp, the Bishop, the head of the Christians in the area." And Polycarp had resolved to continue in his beliefs; but many of his friends said, "Polycarp is an old man, this present feeling will pass over, as it has in the past many times; you go out in the country, get out of sight and when it's over come back again." So he went out to the country there, but the Romans found him; the representative of the Roman government came out, and they found him there at the home of a friend out in the country where he was. He heard them coming, could have easily escaped but he refused, saying, "The will of God be done." So he went out and talked to them; he didn't appear to them to be afraid, but he sat back and talked to them a few hours, presented the gospel to them; many of them began to repent they'd come for so godly and venerable an old man. But then they took him into the city; and one of the pagans came to him—one of the leaders—and said, "What harm is there in saying 'Lord Caesar' and sacrifice as the others did?" When they continued to urge him, he said, "I won't do it." And seeing no hope of persuading, they began to speak bitter words; and they cast him out of the chariot, and in getting down from the chariot he dislocated his leg; but he went forward with all haste and was conducted to the stadium. He entered the stadium; they brought him to the Proconsul. The Proconsul said, "Are you Polycarp? He said, "Yes." The Proconsul said to him, "Have respect for your old age; swear by the fortune of Caesar, and just make a little sacrifice; we don't want to hurt you." Polycarp refused. The Proconsul urged him; he said, "Swear, and I set you at liberty; simply curse Christ, and I set you at liberty." Polycarp said "86 years have I served Christ and He has never done me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?"
He was an old man; you see how long he was after the time of Christ. But we find a man here who was considered as the teacher of the Christians; the leader of the Christians in the whole area, 86 years had he served Christ, and he had never done him any ill. And the Proconsul pressed him hard, and he said, "Just offer a little incense; just make a little sacrifice; submit yourself; bow before the statue of Caesar, and we'll let you go." When Polycarp wouldn't do it, he said, "I have wild beasts at hand, I'll cast you to them if you won't repent." Polycarp said, "Call them then; for we are not accustomed to repent of what is good, nor to adopt that which is evil." Again the Proconsul said to him, "I will cause you to be consumed by fire if thou will not repent." Polycarp said, "Thou threatenest me with fire, which springs from an arrow and after a little is extinguished. But thou art ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and the eternal punishment reserved for the ungodly. What are you waiting for," he said, "bring forth what you will." And while he spoke these, and many other like things, he was filled with confidence and joy; and his countenance was full of grace, so that the Proconsul was astonished; and he sent his heralds to proclaim in the midst of the stadium three times, "Polycarp has confessed that he is a Christian." This proclamation having been made by the herald, the whole multitude—both of the heathen and Jews—cried out with uncontrollable fury in a loud voice, "This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians, the overthrower of our gods; he who has been teaching many not to sacrifice nor to worship the gods." So they cried out and besought that they should let loose a lion to devour Polycarp. But they did not do that; instead they erected a pyre, and they put him on it and they set fire; then according to this writing, they just bound him there and set the fire around; and they kindled the fire and the wind struck the fire in such a way that it shaped itself in the form of an arch; and the fire came up on all sides and never touched him; and the flames were coming up; and when these wicked men perceived his body could not be consumed by the fire, they commanded an executioner to go near and pierce him with a dagger; and on his doing this there came forth a great quantity of blood, so that the fire was extinguished; but eventually, however, they succeeded in killing him; and he was remembered as one of the most noted martyrs of that 2nd century. And this writing was distributed all through the church; and it's quite different from the attitude of Ignatius.
You see how Ignatius was longing for martyrdom. Polycarp was ready to suffer; he would not permit the least thing to prevent it, but he was not looking for it; he was looking for a chance to continue his ministry and to spread the Word, and to accomplish the utmost; and so it is generally regarded as a much higher attitude than the attitude of Ignatius—though we must admire of course the bravery and determination of Ignatius also. But Polycarp's martyrdom is so important this way, so widely discussed, and having such an influence on subsequent times. A few instances of his earlier life are quoted, in another connection, in the writings of Irenaeus and others which we will look at later; so I want you to remember his name, and have in mind just who he was. 86 years he had served Christ; you can see that he was certainly along in years. I don't know just how old, whether he considered his whole life as having been in the service of Christ, or whether he considered himself as having served Christ beginning at a fairly early age.
That
I think is a general survey of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. We move on to a
different type of literature. This type of literature, which I mention as E, is
a type of literature which to some extent preceded perhaps some of the
apostolic fathers. But being a unified type of literature, and being entirely
by men who made no claim to have known the apostles, it is considered as in a
separate category from the apostolic fathers.
E. The Apologists. Now the writings of the apologists, which start now, continue on for some centuries. The apostolic fathers naturally come to an end with the writings I have mentioned. No one after that could claim to have known the apostles. One of the first of the great apologists may perhaps have known one of the apostles; we're not sure. But he's not considered an apostolic father but an apologist, one of the first and greatest of the apologists.
Now the word apologist, which we apply to a man, comes from the name which applies to his writing. We call it an apology; but apology then is an entirely different thing from an apology today. An apology today means a recognition that you have done something wrong and are asking forgiveness. There's nothing of that in the word as used in this connection. The apology here is a recognition that the other man thinks you're wrong, but is an attempt to prove that you're not wrong but right. It's very different from our apology today. The apologies were the writings which men wrote in order to show that Christianity is true and right. They were written—most of them, supposedly—to the good emperors of the 2nd century AD, to men who seemed to be sincerely interested in the welfare of their people. And probably no nation in the world since that time has had a series of rulers who were as capable, as sincere, and as just as the rulers of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD.
And
under the circumstances, when these men who were universally considered as good
men—as men interested in the welfare of their people—persecuted this
Christianity, naturally there were Christians who said, "If these men knew
what Christianity is, they wouldn't persecute it; they would have a different
attitude toward it." So these men began to write words addressed to the
Emperor, in the hope that the Emperor—or the leading thinkers of his day, or
the leading rulers of the day—would see what Christianity really was; to see it
was not a danger to the world and to the state, to resist order and justice,
but rather something that was beneficial.
1. First Apologists. The first of these men whom we speak of as an apologist was a man named Quadratus; but his apology apparently is lost. We just have a quotation from it. Eusebius says that he wrote a discourse to Hadrian the Emperor, as an apology for the Christian religion that we profess. Eusebius says he wrote this because certain malicious persons had taken to harass our brothers. The work is still in the hands of some of the brethren as well as in our own, says Eusebius, from which anyone may see evident proof, both of the understanding of the man and his apostolic statements. This Letter shows the antiquity of the age in which he lived, as these passages—and then he quotes a few passages at length to show that Quadratus had evidently known the disciples. But the work of Quadratus is lost.
And then there was a man in Athens named Aristides; he was a contemporary of Quadratus, according to Eusebius; he also wrote an apology addressed to Hadrian, but it also has disappeared. There was another man named Aristo who wrote one that has been lost.
But
of these first apologists, all the works are lost; they are of no great
importance to us, except to see that such a type of writing began in the reign
of Hadrian. But next is a man of very great importance in the history of the
2nd century. He was of importance because he wrote more than any one had
written up to that time—at least that has been preserved. And what he wrote has
been considered of quite nice quality, on the whole.
2. Justin Martyr (ca.100-ca.166). He is called Justin Martyr because he is supposed to have died in martyrdom, but not much is known about the details of his death. He is supposed, about 166, to have been scourged and beheaded. So we call him Justin Martyr. Justin was called a philosopher also. He devoted his whole life to the defense of Christianity at a time when it was most assailed, and he sealed his testimony with his blood.
He was born at a Greco-Roman colony near the ruins of ancient Samaria. He called himself a Samaritan, but he was of heathen descent; he was uncircumcised, ignorant of Moses and the Prophets before his conversion, so he probably belonged to the Roman Colony that was stationed in Samaria after the destruction of Jerusalem. He was probably born about 100 AD.
In early manhood, he was searching for truth as the greatest possession; and he made the rounds of visiting the philosophers. He tried most every kind of philosophy he could find, except Epicurean which he didn't try; but he tried most of the rest. He found that the Stoics were the sort of agnostics who considered the knowledge of God impossible or unnecessary. He went to one called a Peripatetic and he decided he decided his philosophy wasn't so much. He tried the philosophy of Pythagoras; he tried Platonism. And then one time, in a solitary walk not far from the seashore, he met a venerable old Christian, of pleasant countenance, and genial dignity, who entered into a conversation with him and changed the course of his life.
His unknown friend shook his confidence in all human wisdom; he pointed him to the writings of the Hebrew prophets, who were older than the philosophers and confident of the truth—not as reasoners but as revealers. And the old man went on to say—more than that—they foretold the coming of Christ; and their prophecy was fulfilled in his life and work. Then they separated, and he never saw the old man again. But he took his advice; he studied the prophets; studied the relations of the gospels; and he became a believing Christian. And then he decided to do like some of the pagan philosophers did—go about from place to place; discussing things and giving people help in their understanding. There's no trace of his having been ordained; he continued as an itinerant; he didn't stay in any one place or have any regular office in the church; but he devoted himself wholly to the spread and vindication of the Christian religion.
He said that he had a commission from the Holy Spirit; he was not in any position in the church, and yet he accomplished far more for the good of the church than any known church officer of that day. He retained his philosopher's cloak, so that people would welcome him as a philosopher and hear what he had to say; and then he proceeded to give them Christian teaching. He labored in Rome and other cities where he wandered about; and here one of the philosophers who couldn't answer his argument accused him of being a Christian. Of course, he was openly presenting Christianity, but the emperors were not searching out Christians; but if anyone was accused of being a Christian, then he had a chance to disprove the accusation by sacrificing to the emperor's statue and to the gods. So Justin was martyred; but he left a reputation which was of the highest for his character, for his reasonable, thoroughly Christian attitude; and his works have been highly prized ever since.
There are three main books of his which have been preserved. One of them is an apology addressed to the emperor Antoninus Pius. Probably written about 146, this is the larger apology, 68 chapters. Then there is a 2nd, smaller apology; it probably belongs to the same reign, perhaps a supplement to the first apology; that's 25 chapters. Then there is his Dialogue with Trypho. This dialogue has 142 chapters; it's more than twice as large as the two apologies; it's a vindication of Christianity, from Moses and the prophets, against the objections of the Jews.
There are a number of other documents he is supposed to have written which have not been preserved; and there are some other works which have been preserved, that are attributed to him, doubtless falsely. The Epistle to Diognetus was attributed to Justin Martyr; but it is thought that the style is so different that it is not considered to actually be by him. He thus had an interesting career, one of steady, constant effort in presenting Christianity as reasonable and true, and trying to spread knowledge of it.
Thus
his surviving works are the First and
Second Apologies: the first is the larger, the 2nd is the smaller, but we
call them the 1st and 2nd apology. And then the Dialogue with Trypho is his other surviving work, his other great
writing. Then,
3. Tatian of Assyria. Tatian was a pupil of Justin Martyr; he called Justin Martyr an admirable man, and tried to follow on like Justin Martyr; but unlike him, he wandered into vagaries in his ideas, and he is not nearly so dependable. In the end he came to the border of quite heretical views. Tatian denied that Adam was saved. He said that since Paul says we all die in Adam, so Adam must be lost, which I don't think is very logical. Other Christian writers have not reached that conclusion. Before his conversion he studied mythology, history, poetry, chronology; he attended the theatre and athletic games, and became disgusted with the world. He was led by the Hebrew Scriptures to the Christian faith. We have an apologetic work from him called To the Greeks, written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius; he had a very able style, which was doubtless very effective; but he did something quite remote from his work as an apologist.
He decided that if you want to know about Christ, it's sort of a nuisance to read a little bit in Matthew and then jump over to Luke and read a little something; and a little bit in Mark, and try to put them together. He said, "Why don't we have one story of Christ's life, instead of having four?" So he combined the four gospels; that is to say, he took the four gospels and cut them up into sections according to the incidents they described—what's in them. And then he looked them over; and when he found something that was in two of them, he keeps the longest one and discards the shorter one; and that way he fit together what he found so as to write one work. He called this the Diatessaron, one in place of four. It was a harmony of the four gospels, being selections from them, absolutely unchanged but simply keeping the selections out of each one. And this Diatessaron soon came to be widely circulated. Many churches read from it, instead of from the gospels. After all, it was the very words of the gospels, with nothing of his own; but it was a new arrangement of them.
Sometime later, one of the bishops mentioned that he found more than 200 copies of it in his own little area. A Syrian father wrote a commentary on it. But the book itself came to be lost; quite a lot of people used it a lot, and then it disappeared. An Arab translation of it was discovered in recent years; it has been carefully examined, and we find in it that it contains the material of the gospels and nothing else. And so this is conclusive proof that the Christian church in the middle of the second century was using the four gospels that we have; it was not using, as a valid life of Christ, anything else. So it is very important for critical purposes—for the defense of the authenticity of the gospel—the fact that at that time, in the middle of the second Century, when Tatian wanted to make a life of Christ, everything he got was in the four gospels. And it shows—though nobody bothered to sit down and write down a statement that this proves—that those four gospels that we have today are exactly what the church had in 150 AD, about the life of Christ. So Tatian, while he was an important scholar, unfortunately coming at least to the edge of heretical views, but making this Diatessaron, although actually the Lord gave us four gospels and that's the way he intended us to use them. They are not biographies; they're pictures, and they show Christ from different sides, from various angles; and he wants us to have it that way; so the Diatessaron disappeared out of use; but it is very valuable for the evidence it gives us of the fact that at that time these four gospels are what were used, and nothing else.
Well we continue there tomorrow morning.
We
were speaking of the apologists.
4. Melito of Sardis. There were quite a number of apologists at different times. We are giving you the beginning of the movement. In fact, as time went on, many Christian writers, who were more renowned in other lines perhaps, wrote apologies. But Melito of Sardis is a writer of considerable importance at this time—in the middle of the century—who did write an apology; and this is a good place to say something about it. He was perhaps more important for other reasons than for his apology. He was Bishop of Sardis, capital of Lydia, which is in Asia Minor; and he was very evidently a man who was very active in Christian life in that whole area. We don't know much about the history of events in his time—mainly what has been gathered from the writings of people who were not writing regular history—but who were writing either an apology or some book that would be helpful to other Christians; something like that. From this apology we have a few quotations—most of it seems to have been lost; there's one in Syriac that bears his name, this is a different work from his main apology, and it doesn't contain any of the facts recorded by others; it probably is not the work that he put the greatest effort on, the great apology he wrote.
One reason why Melito is of great interest to us is that he gave us our first Christian list of the books of the Hebrew Old Testament. We, of course, know that the Lord said that the apostles, the Christians, should believe everything the prophets have spoken. We know that the NT writers took the attitude that the OT was inspired; it is true, it is God's Word and highly dependable; but the NT does not specifically name the books of the OT; and the little we have by Christian writers up to this time, none of them say exactly what they consider the OT to be.
Of course the Christian writers largely were men who read Greek, and didn't know Hebrew. The Bible they would know would be the Septuagint; but the Septuagint was not one volume; they did not have volumes in that day, they had scrolls; and the scrolls were not big like our books today. One scroll might contain one book of the OT, or two or three—five at the most—and consequently we didn't have one book we could say was the OT; and so naturally one church would have one book, another church would have another book. What books did the Christians consider to be the inspired work of the OT? Well, Melito has a place in his writings where he says that he went to the east—to the area where these things are understood—he went to Palestine, to find out just what are the true books of the OT. And he says the books are as follows; and he gives us a list of the books; and this list does not include a single one of the books that the Roman Catholics include in the OT—not a single one of the books which we call the Apocrypha. Now of course, the Roman Catholics say that Melito was giving a list of the Jewish books; he wasn't giving a list of books for Christians considered authoritative; but the whole attitude of the NT is that the books which the Jews accept are the books which are genuine, which are true, which are the OT. And Melito says he went to see, what are the books? And he found what they are, and he names them; and his list does not include the books that we call the Apocrypha. The books which the Roman Catholic church—since 1647 actually—has declared to be part of the OT but which leaders in the Roman Catholic Church, previous to that time—some of them—had denied, were part of the Bible.
So Melito was an active writer and an important leader at this time; but I think his principal interest to us is because of his importance in determining what are the books that the Christians at that time considered to be in the OT.
Then
quite a different sort of thing.
1. The Meaning
of the word Gnosis. Now
the word Gnosticism is a word which is derived from the Greek word gnosis. And gnosis means knowledge, sometimes called science. Science is simply
the Latin word for knowledge. But we have come to use the word
"science" for systemized knowledge, knowledge arranged
systematically, and carefully investigated, to be sure whether it's true or not.
Within the last, say, 50 years, the word has been further narrowed down to
mainly knowledge in the natural world, not of matters in the physical and
material world.
a. Previous de-Mythologizing of Pagan Religions. The word de-mythologizing is a word which has come into wide use today; certain very famous speakers and writers today say we must de-mythologize the Christian religion. But what they suggest is exactly what was done before Christianity had gone very far, by people who had never even heard of Christianity. This was done for the Egyptian religion, and also for the Roman and Greek religions. They were de-mythologized; that is, these men claimed to believe in the stories of the gods of these lands; but they considered them in such a way as simply to be a presentation of their own philosophy; it made no difference to them whether these gods ever lived or didn't live; it was their philosophy, which they were presenting under these forms.
In the modern context, some theologians talk about Christian doctrines, and speak of their great importance; but then they'll go on to explain what they mean by it. What they mean by them is, well, like Barth says, that the resurrection of Christ and the second coming of Christ are exactly the same thing. He believes in them both; and they're exactly the same thing; they are not future; they are happening right now, neither future nor past, they're happening right now.
And this way you can present almost any philosophy under almost any form. You simply draw a connection from the one to the other. And that is what was done. One of the papers turned in asked the question, "Did Gnosticism have a Christian or a non-Christian origin?" It had both. Originally it is a non-Christian movement. It is something that came up in the pagan religions. They de-mythologized them; and then when Christianity came along they proceeded to do the same thing to Christianity. They simply joined it into their eclectic philosophic system. But when Gnosticism really came forward with power was when it had a Christian origin rather than a non-Christian. It began with the non-Christians. But then we have a man like Marcion, who was the son of a Christian bishop, with a strong Christian background; he was thoroughly familiar with Christian teaching; he proceeds to adopt these pagan ideas and then to use a great deal of Christian terminology, and pretend to be a great Christian leader, but it was Gnosticism that he was presenting. It has a thoroughly Christian background.
Well, Barth says that he is using these Christian terms to represent philosophical ideas which he holds to be true regardless whether there ever was a man named Jesus, or regardless of what he may have done. So when he says very piously that he believes in the resurrection, he believes in the second coming, simple Christians are greatly blessed by seeing the piety of his attitude; but he believes that people of intelligence will see that what he's talking about is some deep philosophic understanding instead of supernatural myths and legends, as he considers them.
Well, there were probably men exactly like that in Paul's day. At least we know that in Paul's day there were men who did that with the legends of Egypt. Down in Egypt they had the legend about Osiris and Isis and Set and Re and the different gods—very gross material legends—but there were men there who had the most lofty philosophy, which they expressed in the terms of these legends; and they said that these legends were true, because they were a means of presenting higher and deeper philosophical truths; and it didn't matter whether there ever had been gods with those names; it was these philosophical ideas that were the important thing.
Well, people were doing that in that day with the gods of Egypt and with the gods of Rome; and they were calling it superior knowledge, deeper intelligence, and philosophic understanding; and Paul would seem to have seen the beginning of that thing coming into the Christian Church. And so in the book of Colossians he warns us very, very strongly against these things. He warns us against a false humility, a worshipping of angels. He warns us against putting tremendous emphasis on certain days; he warns us against an asceticism that puts its whole stress on such precepts as touch not, taste not, handle not; which things he says are for the glorifying of the flesh, and not for the edifying of the spirit.
This was presented by men with a thoroughly Christian background, thoroughly understanding Christian language, using Christian terminology, but giving essentially the same teaching as previously had been given by non-Christians; and that's of course exactly what we have today. We do not have Gnosticism today, but we have movements today which are just as widespread, just as powerful, if not more so, than Gnosticism, and very similar to it in many ways.
And this is one way in which they are very similar; they represent non-Christian and anti-Christian currents which were previously given by non-Christians, but have now been taken up by Christian leaders—men who have a thorough Christian background and understand Christian terminology thoroughly—who talk as if they were presenting Christianity, but are presenting exactly the same thing as is presented from these other views.
I was much interested when I was a student at the University of Berlin, to become rather well acquainted with a Mohammedan student, from India; he had studied at the University, studied the modern philosophies there—the rationalistic philosophies—and I found him to be a very earnest Mohammedan, very strictly observing all the forms and ceremonies of Mohammedanism; but when he explained what Mohammedanism was, it was just plain ordinary German rationalism, exactly as any Christian modernist would say; only instead of using Christian terminology he used Mohammedan terminology. He was just an ordinary modernist but it was all Mohammedan terminology instead of Christian terminology.
Well, that's what you find in this gnostic view. So as was the previous de-mythologizing of Pagan religion, this didn't start with Christianity; it was a separate movement, a movement of skepticism in those religions; it proceeded—instead of getting rid of them—to reinterpret them; to teach the old terms, put new meaning into them. From that background, it extended into Christianity. Then,
b. The Claim to Superior Knowledge. This of course
ties right up directly with the word gnosis,
the knowledge, the science, the understanding that they claimed to have. The
ordinary Christianity was good enough for the ordinary person; but for them,
they had a superior knowledge. And the ordinary Christian was worse off and
didn't have that knowledge. The first thing was the agreement that a higher
knowledge was the important thing. To get this higher understanding, this
deeper philosophy, you could understand and see what things really were, which
only a favored few were capable of really understanding. That was one thing
that was typical of all the gnostic groups, this stress upon the higher
knowledge.
c. Apocryphal Books. I mentioned their claim to have certain hidden books—secret books—the word apocryphal originally just means secret, hidden books. They said they had special books in addition to the NT which were secret works; they kept them on their shelves, and had the real understanding in them, real knowledge, hidden books. But of course the Christians, when they got tired of arguing about hidden books, they came to use the word hidden as something bad; so today apocryphal doesn't mean hidden, it just means false.
The
book of Colossians is a strong warning by Paul against certain false teachings
that were beginning in the church; and then we find II Peter warns very
strongly against movements which he says will come into the church; and we find
Jude speaking in the strongest language against movements which he speaks of as
if they were already there. John warns in his epistle against those who deny
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, which suggests that there were those
who said that God had appeared on earth; and it wasn't a man, it was God;
looking like a man, but not being a man.
2. The Roots of
Gnosticism in the First Century. Under that
a. New Testament Evidence. Yesterday I discussed particularly the book of Colossians. Notice that in I Timothy we have a warning against "science falsely so-called." We notice that in Colossians Paul warned them against the worshipping of angels, and intruding into hidden mysteries, puffed up with their fleshly pride, and not holding the head, Christ. The worshipping of angels I mentioned. I mentioned how Paul in Colossians attacked those who put all their stress on such things as, "touch not, taste not, handle not." Of course it's a very sad thing that with the very good temperance movements of our day—a very vital and important thing—people have often quoted Colossians. There have even been parades in which they've waved banners saying "touch not, taste not, handle not." But what Paul says is, "be not subject to orders that say 'touch not, taste not, handle not.'" So the temperance people are taking something out of its context very badly. For that "touch not, taste not, handle not," is mighty good advice regarding that which is bad. But in Colossians he's not talking about that; he is talking about an extreme attitude which in the end results in a reaction that does harm rather than good; and Paul was speaking about the attitude of carrying asceticism to a limit, which in the end causes a rebound and isn't a representation of true Christianity. So he says be not subject towards the "touch not, taste not, handle not" crowd. Who was subject to such? Why, the Gnostics at the beginning of this movement.
And then in John; remember I quoted how John referred to the people who denied that Christ had come in the flesh. He said test the spirits, not to follow the spirits that deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
So
we have in the New Testament the evidence that it was really beginning in the
first century. Then
b. Simon Magus. He was a
sorcerer, you remember, in Samaria, and I pointed out we ready don't know
anything about him except what Acts says. But according to the Christian ideas
of the 2nd century, Simon had been one of the founders of Gnosticism; and he
had gone throughout the Empire, presenting views that were contrary to
Christianity, having tremendous influence. And then
c. Cerinthus. I mentioned Cerinthus, this gnostic leader in the first century. The Romans had these bath houses in all of their Roman cities, a great establishment where they had pools of water you could get into; and these men lolled around there, and did various things to amuse themselves while they were getting this heat treatment and getting washed in these pools. There were many of them in Rome and they were in all the great cities.
There is a story—a legend about the apostle John—a tradition that John in his later days went into the bath house in Ephesus; and there he saw a man named Cerinthus, a man who had been considered to be a Christian, who was active in the Christian movement, and then who began to present certain interpretations which did away with various Biblical teachings; and they say that John ran out of the bath house. He said that he didn't want to remain in that building while Cerinthus was there, for fear that God's judgment might fall upon the place while Cerinthus was there. Now that's tradition about John. We have no evidence whether there's any truth to it or not.
But in the 1st century, as you know, we have very little evidence, aside from the book of Acts, about what happened between the time of Christ and nearly the middle of the 2nd century. That is, we know Clement's letter and Ignatius' letters but very little else until we get to the middle of the 2nd century.
In fact, in the whole 2nd century, what you have are not histories at all but letters about particular things; or discussions, descriptions of particular martyrdoms or something like that; we have no real history from the 2nd century. But we do get—in the middle of the last half of the 2nd century—a number of Christian writings against heresy, writings which will be sometimes several hundred pages long, describing the detailed views of various heresies, and warning the Christians against them. And the evidence is, that the gnostic movement in the 2nd century became so strong and so powerful and took such great numbers of professing Christians that it looked to many as if the old-fashioned orthodox Christianity was going to disappear entirely.
And
so Gnosticism is a very vital force during this second century, a force which
probably began in the first century; it became quite strong during the 2nd
century, so very strong by the middle of the century that it seemed as if it
might completely defeat and destroy Christianity; but by the end of the century
it was very clearly on the decline.
3. Points Common
to Most Gnostic Groups. We learn about Gnosticism largely through the
Christian writers attacking it, and also describing it in order to warn people
against it. There seem to have been a large number of different Gnostic groups;
modern scholars have attempted to arrange them in special groups, but they
don't agree on the groupings. There are such differences among them, yet so
many particular points of agreement among them too, that it's pretty hard to
get them into definite groups.
a. The Claim to Possession of Higher Knowledge. We already mentioned the claim to have secret books and superior, hidden knowledge. This is the first thing; the agreement that a higher knowledge was the important thing. To get this higher understanding, this deeper philosophy, you could understand and see what things really were, which only a favored few were capable of really understanding. That was one thing that was typical of all the gnostic groups, this stress upon the higher knowledge.
Some of them even said they had special books in addition to the NT which were secret works; they kept them on their shelves, and had the real understanding in them; and from that our word apocryphal comes, because they were just hidden books, they weren't really God's Word. The word "apocryphal" in Greek means hidden; it came to mean bad books, or spurious.
The
second thing the Gnostics seem also to have agreed on is
b. Belief that
Matter is Essentially Evil. This is a view into which many Christians in many
periods have fallen; it definitely is not the Biblical teaching. The Bible does
not anywhere teach that anything is evil in itself. It is not the thing that is
evil, but the use of the thing. It is good or evil as to whether it is used
well or used badly. Nothing that God has made is per se evil. But the Gnostics, all these many different sects of
gnostic views seem to have agreed in the idea—an idea which is akin to
Buddhism—that matter in itself is evil; and that it is desirable to get away
from all contact or connection with matter. But they went on from this to hold
that matter being evil, the creation of the world was an evil act; and so they
did not believe that the great God of the universe created the universe; it was
created by another being whom they called the demiurge. It is the demiurge who
created this world. And in creating this world he did an evil thing. Then that
being the case, we who were matter could not approach the good God. We could
not come to Him; there must be an infinite distance between us and Him, and
also between Him and the demiurge who created the world.
c. Belief in Angelic Intermediaries and in opposition between the good God and the creator of this world. I gave you the word demiurge which they used regarding the creator of this world—the demiurge. The demiurge was not the great God; he was a weak creature; great enough to create the world, but not great enough to withstand evil; in fact he did evil by creating matter, according to their belief. That is true of most of the gnostic groups.
They imagine a series of angels in between—angels or emanations as some call them—so that there was a whole list of beings through whom you had to go to reach God; He could have no contact with that which is material. This series of angels in between is rather characteristic of most gnostic sects; and Paul warns us in Colossians against a worshipping of angels, or inquiring into those things we don't understand, and seeking to imagine that we are capable of knowing the points that only God knows.
And
then a fourth feature that seems to be common to them, is
d. Denial of the Incarnation. Since matter is inherently evil, we cannot believe actually that Christ, the highest emanation from the Father, could have soiled himself by taking a material body. The way men thought they saw Christ—it was a delusion—it was mere an apparent body. This belief came to be known as Docetism. Docetism is that which seems rather than that which is.
Now
many of them could use the terminology about Christ that makes you think they
believe in Christ. But in the truest sense they did not believe in Him, that He
was God and that He was man. They said Christ, the highest emanation from the
Father, could not have lowered Himself by taking a material body. Then
e. Their Attitude toward the body. They agreed in thinking that the body, being matter, was evil; they all agreed on that; and many of them felt that the body should therefore be kept down, be forgotten, be abandoned; we should do nothing to give in to the desires of the body, "touch not, taste not, handle not": eat as little as you can; don't eat anything you enjoy; do not have anything that gives in to the desires of the body.
Some went to the opposite extreme. They said since matter is inherently evil, and that the body is inherently evil, the best thing is to corrupt it and to destroy it as rapidly as possible; and therefore, they put no limit on the misuse of the body because they were corrupting it, destroying it, getting rid of it.
So we have the extremes of asceticism and sensuality—two opposite results of the one viewpoint—and both were seen among the group known as Gnostics. Now it seems that some of the later Christian writers, as I said, write at tremendous lengths about the Gnostics, and tell about their various views.
The medieval Catholic monks, of course, were affected by this attitude—the attitude of the body being essentially evil. It is a wrong attitude, but it is even today the basis of much of the Roman Catholic attitude. Men cut themselves off from all the enjoyment of any physical pleasures whatever; and in some cases it's no spiritual help at all; in some cases it is the wrong placement of emphasis. The Lord doesn't want us to let the physical desires interfere with spiritual. He wants them to be so subordinate that they do not interfere with it, or assume first place in any way. But he certainly wants them to have their proper function. He gave us enjoyment of food in order that we shall eat that which enables us to live. He does not want us to be gluttons—which is putting food first—but he does want us to give it its normal place.
In the middle ages this attitude affected the church; but the Gnostic movement as such was wrong. Paul said that we should keep the body under subjection, that we should use the body as an instrument for doing God's will rather than as an end in itself; but Paul never taught the disregard of the desires of the body as an end in itself, or a good thing in itself.
The Roman Catholic Church said the spiritual leaders must not marry. Paul did not marry, but Paul explicitly said that he had a right, like Peter, to take a wife around with him; he made that definitely certain. Paul did not hold that it was a point of any superior sanctity to be unmarried. He did hold that in his own particular case, there was an advantage. There are certain statements of Paul against gluttony, against sensuality—taken out of context, can be used, and have been used—for extreme ascetic monasticism, but I don't think that Paul's teaching as a whole would ever give that impression.
Well, those were the 5 points I mentioned. Next,
4. The Great Variety of Gnostic Groups. We have early Christian books answering the Gnostics, which spend perhaps 200 pages describing the different groups; telling the views of the different groups; of their leaders, their background, and all that. There was tremendous variety; just like today, you take the modernist teachers of today and you outline their teaching and you can find tremendous variety, tremendous.
One will hold a thing strongly, and another will completely deny that and hold something different; and yet you find certain trends that run through them all; certain anti-Christian tendencies that are common to them all. And in particular this matter of de-mythologizing, and claiming superior knowledge, is very widespread today.
One of the first groups of the Gnostics is called the Ophites. We have two great later writers who describe the Ophites; and the name is derived from ophis, serpent. Matter is inherently evil; it is the demiurge who did an evil thing by creating the world. Therefore, the serpent who led Adam to go against the command of the demiurge was doing a good thing. And so they worshipped the serpent that beguiled Eve; he was really a beneficent being by raising mankind to a knowledge of good and evil. And they took the people whom the OT considered as bad—like Cain—and they made heroes of them. They were the people who were opposed to the demiurge—the wicked god, who had created the world—and thus were under the direction of the good God, who would have nothing to do with matter.
I don't mean to stress that one group particularly; it was just one of the various ones; but they held that the serpent had been a beneficent creature which led Adam and Eve away from the evil god of the universe which created matter; so they held that the serpent was good; and they worshipped the serpent, and they praised Cain, and Saul—anyone who had disobeyed the creator of this world—because the creator of this world, in their scheme, was evil.
Now these various sects of Gnostics, one after another was rising; some of them traced themselves back to Simon Magus, the man in Samaria mentioned in the book of Acts. Whether there's any connection or not, I think it's pretty hard to say. All that Acts tells us is that Simon believed. And then it says that Simon, when he saw the apostles laying hands on people's heads and their receiving the Holy Spirit, he then asked them to give him that power so that he might also be able to give the Holy Spirit to people; and Peter told him that he perceived that he was still in the bond of iniquity; he talked very strongly to Simon; and in the second century we find Simon considered as one who became one of the great antagonists of Christianity, and who was a leader of anti-Christian movements.
Well, that's a century later. Maybe it was a false story that developed. I don't think that we know at all. Some of you may have read the story, The Silver Chalice. It's a very interesting story, written within the last four or five years. And in that story this Simon is described as being a fake magician, who convinced himself he was a true magician; and he died as a result, and for being a great enemy of Christianity. Now that was not just an idea of the writer of that book; it is found in a second century writer. But as I say, it's long after; and it can be true, it can be false. But at any rate many of these Gnostics supposedly had gone back to Simon as their leader, as founder of their movement.
5. Gnostic
Leader: Marcion.
But there was a man in the second century who became particularly important in
the development of a certain branch of Gnosticism; that was Marcion, and he is
of such great importance that he deserves a place by himself.
a. His life. He came from Asia Minor, son of a bishop there; he had a thorough Christian background, knew Polycarp and other great leaders there; he came to Rome, and in Rome tried to join the church and become a leader in the church; the church refused to receive him, so he became the leader of a very strong gnostic movement which was very powerful all during this second century.
Marcion said that the God of the OT and the God of the New are two entirely different gods, and there is opposition between the two of them. He said that God could not have been perfectly wise or perfectly good or he would not have made man in his own image and then allowed him to fall.
And when God said in the garden, "Adam where are thou?" God didn't know where Adam was. And he said the command to slaughter the Egyptians, and the choice of Saul to be King, were acts unworthy of a perfect God. He did not claim that the God of the Jews was an evil being as some of the other Gnostics did; he said the OT God was actuated by just motives but was limited in his intelligence.
This is a widespread view today—the view of the limited God who is fine, but can't quite succeed in overcoming evil and needs our help. Well, Marcion is the first Bible critic. He stated that certain of the books were not genuine. He accepted none of the Gospels except the book of Luke; and then he accepted Luke's other writing, the Acts, but he suggested that Luke's Gospel be very thoroughly revised. He accepted ten epistles of Paul, refusing to recognize the others; and he made considerable critical improvements in them to say what they really should; and he had a large group of followers, and was a great force all through the first century.
[student: When you say a person is the Bishop of Antioch, or of Rome, does that mean there was one congregation in that city, or did they have local congregations in one geographic location?] Well, that's a matter for us to look at the evidence, see what it shows. In the day of Paul, every congregation had several elders, and an elder and a bishop were the same thing. We find Ignatius speaking in a way that shows that each town had only one Bishop. But most towns had only one congregation, so ordinarily you might have a little tiny town that had a Bishop. Whatever the size of the town, there was a Bishop.
But as the larger towns got more congregations, the tendency was for the Bishops to assign certain presbyters to oversee certain churches while he had oversight over the whole group, and thus the Bishop of Rome comes eventually to be the leader of a large circuit of churches.
We know very little about the situation in those days, but the writers of the next century called him the Bishop of Rome. They give us a list of the Bishops; we have various lists, and in these lists they mention him as one of the successive Bishops of Rome. They say Peter was the first, Linus the second, some of them say Cletus was the third, and Clement the fourth; some say Cletus is the third, and Anacletus the fourth, and Clement the fifth. So they differ as to whether Cletus and Anacletus are one or two men; we know nothing whatever about the names. But Clement is mentioned in all the lists.
Now
whether the church of Rome at Clement's time was a little tiny church, of one
congregation; or whether by that time it had grown to have several
congregations, we just know nothing about it; our ignorance on this is very,
very great. It is from a much later period that we get the information. Well,
then under Marcion, I mention
b. His relation
to Polycarp.
When Irenaeus tells us about Marcion, he says that when Polycarp visited Rome,
it was just a short time before Polycarp's death; he was coming from Asia
Minor, having known Marcion's father and known Marcion as a boy. He was in Rome
and Marcion met him on the street; and Marcion was happy to see old Polycarp
from his home area; and he says, "Oh Polycarp, do you remember me?"
And Polycarp turned to him and said, "Yes, I know you; you're the
firstborn of Satan." And that is one of the few things recorded about
Polycarp besides his epistle to the Philippians and the story of his martyrdom;
and it showed the attitude of Polycarp as he understood what a tremendously
vital force Marcion was in the Gnostic movement, which was threatening the
destruction of Christianity.
c. Marcion's
Attitude toward the Scriptures. This is extremely important. I just
mentioned how Marcion held that the OT as we have it was evil; certain parts of
he would accept, but most of it was evil. Of the Gospels he only accepted one,
the Gospel of Luke and that one he revised radically. He accepted Acts, though,
with some revision; and he accepted ten epistles of Paul. And that was all of
the Bible that Marcion held to; but he insisted he was following the scripture.
This was the scripture but of course he made certain changes in it. And some
people today are very strong in their praise of Marcion; they consider him the
first real Biblical scholar. Of course, they say, his criticism was not on the
level of criticism of today; but he showed the same sort of intelligent
criticism of today, even though he didn't yet have the background or experience to get the correct
results. Then
6. The great spread and ultimate decline of Gnosticism. In the middle of the second century, Gnosticism was so widespread that if an intelligent pagan, knowing nothing about Christianity, were just to start out to try to find out something about the religious condition of the Roman Empire, the first three congregations that he happened to get into to see what they were like, might prove to be gnostic congregations. And when he observed the differences between their views, and then went into a Christian church and observed the differences between its views, he probably would have said there's a tremendous variety among these people; and so much of what they teach is so similar to the pagan religion that, give them another 50 years and they probably will be gone.
Well,
another 50 years of Gnosticism; but Christianity did not die with Gnosticism,
because the leaders of the church were able to hake a sharp distinction and
keep a great many of their people from being confused by it, separate from it.
So the great spread and ultimate decline of Gnosticism is very important fact
of this second century of the Christian era.
7. Some Effects
of Gnosticism on the Church. But the Gnostic movement had certain
very definite positive effects upon the second century church.
a. Determine exactly the True Books. One was that it led these Christians to see it was very important to determine exactly what the true books are. What are the books of the OT? Naturally, a Christian was anxious to read the Christian books; and when someone would say, "Now, here, I have a copy of one of the gospels." Well, I want to read it; I want to learn what I can. "Here's a letter from Paul; this is one of the inspired books." Very few people in those days would have all the books; very few churches would have all the books. They mostly were on separate scrolls; and the early attitude of the Christians was, when someone would say here's one of the inspired books, they were happy to get it. But now, when the Gnostics began having their own books, and revising the NT books; and taking various attitudes toward the OT books, it made it necessary for the Orthodox Christians to determine with certainty what are the books that God has inspired? And so it resulted in an effort to find out what the true facts are.
I don't like to say that any books were canonized; because I feel that the word "canonize" means make authoritative; I feel that if a book is authoritative it is God who made it authoritative; God directed in the writing of the books; the Holy Spirit kept the writer from error; so the book was authoritative, and was given as authoritative to the people of God by the inspired writers.
But as time went on there came the question, "Which are the books?" People had received them from others who told them these are inspired books, and to be sure you had the right ones. Naturally, efforts had been made in that direction. When I was in my senior year in college, there was the son of a missionary there who was in college; and he began taking some work in the evening school of the Los Angeles Bible Institute; and we had a new President of our college [Occidental], a man who had been professor in a Presbyterian Seminary in San Francisco; he had just been made president of the college. And he heard that this student was studying at the Bible Institute, and so he called him in. He said, "You'll lose all the benefit of your college education if you take this and the Bible Institute at the same time." He said, "You want to have an open mind, be receptive to truth; down there they'll close your mind, make you think you know everything already." Now he said—he'd been a professor of church history—"Just to show you that you need more knowledge before you're ready to take work like that at the Bible Institute, how do you know you've got the right books in the Bible you're studying?" He said, "Who decided on the books? Was it some man, or was it a council that decided?" And the student didn't know, so he thought he'd make a guess; he said, "A council." And the president of the college said, "No, that's wrong. No council collected them." And of course he—knowing church history—if the fellow said it was one man, he could have said, "No there was no man decided." Because the fact is that neither one is true. There is no evidence of any individual or of any council having determined what were the true books of the Bible. But we have councils later on declaring their acceptance of the standard Christian view, that these are the books; but we have no evidence of any council taking an action or taking a vote among certain books or deciding for or against a particular book. Neither a council nor a man, The Spirit of God worked through the Christians, leading the body of Christians to come to an agreement as to what were the correct books that the holy Spirit had inspired; and to an attitude of non-acceptance of those books that claimed to be authoritative books, but that had not been inspired of the Lord.
There is no evidence of any individual making an authoritative decision or of any council voting on the matter. It was a matter which was decided by the Spirit of God working through the Christians. In the days when the book was given, it was accepted as authoritative; these books spread; people accepted them as such; when people tried to foist others off on them, some might have accepted them; but they did not go far enough in their acceptance to become a vital factor. The early church would read The Shepherd of Hermas in church. Similarly, we may read a letter from a missionary. We might read from Pilgrim's Progress. They read the Shepherd of Hermas there; they read the Epistle of Barnabas, they read the apocryphal books of the OT, but there's no evidence that any large part of the church ever considered any of these books as authoritative books giving God's commands for us. We place importance on it, because there is a large section of the professing church today which declares that the OT contained several books which we do not have in our OT; and if it was not for that it would have little authority. But in view of that fact, that the Council of Trent said, "Let anyone be accursed that does not accept all of these books," and that they are held to be part of the inspired Word of God, it is interesting for us, and useful in argument, to know that the earliest list we have by a Christian Bishop of the books of the Old Testament does not contain any of them. It is not the basis on which we determine the canon, but it is a useful fact. I accept them on the belief that God inspired them in the first place; and the people of God accepted them as such and passed them on. But that is a matter which, in the course in OT Introduction, I used to discuss the matter for maybe two or three weeks, and go into detail on it. Now with others teaching that course, they doubtless do it in similar fashion. I don't know whether that's taught this year—or is it next year?—but that course goes into it rather thoroughly. In this course all we can do is to summarize the conclusions; I wouldn't have time to go into details of that in this course.
Doubtless there were many books lost that would be of great interest in connecting the dots and telling more detail about the history and more information about events; but the books that God wanted us to take as authoritative I believe He caused them to be preserved. I do not believe that there's any book that He inspired that He allowed to be lost. He preserved every one of them; and if somebody discovers a new book and that absolutely is proven to be written by the apostle Paul, I say that's very interesting, I would be much interested in the facts contained in the book, but I have no reason to think it was an inspired book, free from error like these. But that is a different field than church history.
I just at this point wanted to mention the fact that the rise of Gnosticism made it important for people to think this thing through; to take a strong stand on what the books of the Bible were. I just want you to see how Gnosticism alerted people to the problem, made it necessary to take a clear attitude.
There
might be some Gnostics who would hold that Jesus was only a man; he wasn't
Christ at all, but that Christ rested on him. But the view of God in human
flesh the Gnostics did not hold; and John said test the Spirits, the spirit
that denied that Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. You find that even
in these writings of John, at the beginning of this movement.
b. Enlarge the Idea of a Catholic Church. Well, now that was one of the effects on the Christian church; and the 2nd effect on the Christian church of Gnosticism was that it strengthened, enlarged the idea of a catholic church. Now as I've already pointed out the word "catholic" has come to have an entirely different meaning today. Today it has come to be a word which one organization uses. There was no organization of that type at that time. At that time, there is no evidence that any one individual in the world was recognized by all Christians as their leader. Nor was there any evidence that there were meetings—representing all the Christians, to which they looked as having leadership over the entire group. But at this time, each group seems to have given a great deal of authority to its bishop. And the bishops felt that they were greatly indebted for information and assistance and advice they could get from other bishops.
And the Christians throughout the world who believed in the doctrines of the scriptures and did not accept the gnostic views, felt that they were brothers of all other Christians who took this same attitude, and they called them catholic Christians; that is, Christians who held to the great fundamentals, even though they might differ on minor points. The word "catholic" originally means all-embracing. It is including all of those who held to the cardinal doctrines, and did not accept the gnostic heresy. They were in communion with one another; and the people thought, "Well, here's a group over here which is sufficiently divergent from the great stream of Christianity that we cannot have real fellowship with them." They would say they are not catholic Christians; and that's what the word catholic meant at that time.
It seems too bad that a word which meant this so definitely in ancient church history should have come to have such a different meaning today; but I don't see any way we can change it into what it meant in the past. When we study ancient church history we must realize what it meant then. Now there may be those today—there are those today—who claim that "catholic" always meant showing allegiance to the Church of Rome; and for that reason we have to pay more attention to the history of the Church of Rome than is warranted otherwise, in order to see what the true situation is. We'll look more at that later; but I merely make a statement at this point, that the Christian churches felt themselves bound together in a spiritual unity; but they did not feel that any one church was the leader over others, except insofar as its members, by their superior piety, superior understanding, superior leadership, might for a time merit such leadership.
Well, the Christians were compelled by the gnostic movement to think through the great features of their faith; and to decide what the fundamentals were; and to decide what their attitude should be toward different leaders and Christian groups. And one reason of course Christianity did not become simply a gnostic sect and disappear as so many different sects in the Roman Empire disappeared, was that the church rigorously excluded the Gnostics once it was clear what their views were. They excluded them from their membership and from their leadership. Marcion tried hard to be accepted in the Church of Rome when he went there, but those who have gnostic views were excluded from the membership of the church; they drew a sharp line against them. And of course they were constantly losing members to Gnosticism; because as Christians would find teachers claiming to have a greater knowledge, which gave them a better understanding, some of them would drift off; but they drew a sharp line and tried to keep them from drifting off; and it was comparatively seldom that a whole congregation of people, or a whole area would drift off into the gnostic view. But it must have looked to an outsider who saw the condition of Christianity in the middle of the century, that probably the view they then held would be largely discarded within another half century, the Gnostics were so powerful and so widespread; but by the end of the century, the Gnostics were on the decline; and by the middle of the following century they, as a real sect of the Christian church, had practically disappeared. Their views had passed over into a sect. By a century later they were considered as outside the Christian church, very definitely.
Next
we will go on to
G. Persecution
by Marcus Aurelius.
1. The Character of the Emperor. Marcus Aurelius was one of the very finest of all the emperors. I doubt if there is a history book you will read anywhere—whether written by a Christian or an unbeliever—who in describing him, but what will say that Marcus Aurelius was a great man, a noble man, a good man; a man who tried to enforce justice; a man who lived very, very simply, refusing to take to himself any of the pleasures which, as emperor, he had a right to; and he considered himself as simply living for the good of his people. He wrote a work, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which some people say is marvelously Christian; and some people today read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, to help them in their spiritual life. But Marcus Aurelius was not a Christian, but a Stoic, a Stoic philosopher; but he felt that good order in the Roman Empire required the maintenance of the ancient rites and ceremonies; and that the reason why there was coming to be widespread crime and much degeneration of life was that people were not revering the ancient gods, and the virtues of antiquity.
So when the Christians were denying the ancient gods and refusing to attend their services, he felt that this was something which must be rooted out of his empire; and there was more persecution in the reign of Marcus Aurelius than of any other emperor of the 2nd century. Now of course another thing that entered into it was that his reign was marked by frightful calamity. There was famine, pestilence; the Tiber overflowed its banks; they had all sorts of natural calamities during the reign of Marcus Aurelius; and the populace sought to propitiate their offended gods by attacking the men who were denying these gods.
They called the Christians "atheists" because they denied the gods, and the populace was stirred up against them. During his reign Justin Martyr was killed, and there were several others executed in Rome and in Ephesus; but the place where the persecution was most severe was in France. In France a mob seems to have begun the persecution; the mob began insulting the Christians and attacking them; and they were arrested and imprisoned. There was a prominent man then—a man of high rank—who went to the governor and protested; he said he was a Christian; everybody thought highly of him, he was a Christian. He said if these folks are guilty of some crime, I am too; so they took him and executed him first. And ten of those who were arrested sacrificed to the gods, and they were allowed to go free; but others were arrested and they were accused of having secret meetings, at which they drank wine together, ate broken bread together, and indulged in all sorts of sensualities. They took some slaves and tortured them; and the slaves, in order to get out of the torture, said all sorts of terrible things that they said were done; a female slave named Blandina, however, was tortured the whole day so cruelly that her torturers wondered that she still continued to live; she insisted there was nothing evil about Christianity.
A
Deacon of the church at Lyon was tortured by having a red-hot glass attached to
his body; all they could get out of him were the words, "I am a Christian,
I am a Christian." There was a slave girl who under torture had confessed
the terrible crimes the Christians did. They wanted to get more information out
of her, they tortured her again; now she recanted all she said, and declared
her faith in Christ, and met her death as a Christian. The Bishop of Lyon was a
man 90 years of age. He was beaten and ill-treated in a most brutal manner and
died in prison. They roasted one man alive. The fanaticism of the Gallic mobs
was very, very bitter; and there were estimated to be 48 people who were thus
cruelly killed by this terrible torture.
They were trying to cow the others, and scare them into giving it up;
and they were still following Trajan's maxim to quite an extent—that they
should not accept the word of secret informants and that sort of thing. 48 were
terribly tortured; but 48 is not a tremendous number, and the persecutions in
this century were comparatively small. Think of the Bishop of Lyon being so
cruelly treated—he was 90 years of age. He'd gone through all those years
without being killed or tortured. We continue here then next time.
2. The Persecution Particularly in Gaul. I don't think the persecutions were worse in Gaul, but we discussed them particularly because we happen to know more about them in Gaul than in other parts of the empire. But I described the way some of these people were treated in Gaul including the bishop of Lyon, Pothinus, who was over 90. He was beaten and ill-used in the most brutal manner and died in prison. I mentioned the torture of the slaves; I mentioned the terrible tortures which were given to these people; and much of it doubtless would not be through the emperor's orders.
The emperor had given a specific order to put an end to Christianity; it was a danger to the state; but the people were suffering from the terrible calamities that came at that time; they had droughts; they had great fires; they had some bad defeats by their enemies; they had a lot of calamities in this one reign, and they were blaming it on the fact that the people had become irreligious, and the temples were not being attended properly; and so the mob was blaming the Christians, who were keeping people away from the temples. So the mob was calling for vengeance on the Christians for the calamities the empire was suffering.
As
for the Roman Governors, it would seem from what we know of the great outcry of
the mob there, that the governor would give orders to destroy the Christians,
but he carried them out in a more brutal manner than he might have otherwise,
in his desire to placate the mob, and keep from having riots and upheavals more
than he could help. So there was terrible torture in his treatment of the
people; but the number of martyrs does not seem to have been extremely great. The Letter of the Martyrs of Lyon,
describing what was happening, is considered one of the most beautiful and
touching monuments of Christian antiquity.
3. The Cessation of Persecution under Commodus. And this is something which could certainly not be expected. As you know, Commodus was emperor from 180 to 192. Marcus Aurelius, one of the best men who ever sat in control of the empire, failed to continue the policy that had gone on for almost a century, that the emperor pick out an excellent man to be his successor and adopt him. Marcus Aurelius had a son, one son; he was devoted to that son, and he simply followed the normal course of monarchy in claiming his son to be his successor. Commodus had the best education of the day, and the only thing in it that interested him at all was training in boxing and gladiatorial combat. He was not interested in anything else but what he learned.
When Marcus Aurelius died, a great and good man, he had not adopted and carefully picked the emperor after him; his son succeeded him, and for 12 years the Roman Empire suffered under a regime which was not as bad perhaps as the reign of Nero, but which lasted much longer than the wicked parts of the reign of Nero had lasted; and so the total injury to the empire was probably about as great as that under Nero. Commodus had many people murdered; he indulged in all kinds of debauchery, wickedness, and which everyone considered an utter disgrace to the Empire; but strangely enough, after the good man, the excellent, just emperor, his father, had done so much to destroy Christianity, this wicked man put a stop to the persecution.
He had a concubine, named Marcis; and for some reason she showed herself favorable to Christians. We have no idea why it was. Perhaps she was a woman of Christian background, who had come from a Christian family and had turned her back on everything that she had believed; she was a companion in the wicked debauchery of the emperor, but perhaps she tried to still her conscience by using her position to get favors for the Christians. Now that's purely a guess; it may have nothing to do with it. But whatever the reason, it would seem that this wicked woman used her influence on Commodus to cause the persecution to cease. So very soon after Commodus became emperor, the persecution ceased; and it wasn't much longer—two or three years later—Commodus gave orders that the many Christians who had been sent to slavery in the mines of Sardinia—with brutal overseers—be released and allowed to return to their homes. So the persecution was stopped, and the people who were suffering from it were largely freed, as the result of the influence of this wicked woman.
Well,
now what happened after Commodus, 192, really comes under this century but it
starts the situation of the next century, so I'm going to leave it till the
next century. There was no more persecution in this century, and the church had
peace as far as external difficulty was concerned. And then
H. Irenaeus. And Irenaeus is
one of the great writers of the early church, a man with whom we should be
familiar. He lived from approximately 133 to 203. Irenaeus had been a pupil of
Polycarp. He was brought up in Asia Minor, we'll call that
1. His Life. We don't know a
great deal about it, but he had been a pupil of Polycarp in Asia Minor; and
then in some way, he had moved clear west, all the way from Asia Minor to
France. They called it Gaul in those days; and he was there as a presbyter,
under the bishop Pothinus. When this bishop was killed in the persecutions,
Irenaeus was made Bishop of Lyon in his place. Now Irenaeus' life thereafter is
a comparatively quiet life; but he covered a good bit of territory in those
days—Asia Minor to Gaul. His relationship with Polycarp—who was the disciple of
the apostle John, and doubtless there were others he knew who had known
John—gave him an opportunity of having a knowledge of the apostle a little
closer than most people could have. He knew people who knew him, and he had
heard things about him, and so on.
2. His
Opposition to Gnosticism. Irenaeus had gained a thorough knowledge of
Gnosticism, and he wrote one of the greatest books against Gnosticism that we
have. He gives us more information than we get from any other source about the
Gnostics. He tells us about the beliefs of the different sects, and then
proceeds to refute them from scripture. So his opposition to Gnosticism is one
of the forces that put an end to Gnosticism—his strong words against it—but it
also was one of the great sources in enabling us to know a good deal about it.
He was a very able writer and a man of very great influence in his time.
3. A Source of Knowledge of Church History. His writings are more voluminous than anybody else's up to that time—that has been preserved for the present. And in his writings, he was interested in proving that Gnosticism was wrong. And one argument he would give was this: "Why, these Gnostics, where do they come from? Their beliefs just originated in the last few years. Their ideas don't come from the apostles. Go in to the great churches like the church of Antioch and the church of Rome. These churches the apostles founded. Look at Rome where Peter and Paul were, and where Peter was succeeded by Linus, and Linus by Cletus, and he by Anacletus, and he by Clement," and he named some men; and he said, "See, there's an unbroken line right from the apostle. Look at Smyrna, where you have Polycarp, student of John." He points to these and says these men have a knowledge of what Christianity is that goes right back to the apostles; and so Irenaeus unwittingly became a source of ideas of apostolic succession.
There
are those today who say you are not truly baptized if you're not baptized by
somebody who was himself baptized by somebody who can trace it back in unbroken
succession to the days of the apostles. The Church of England holds that you
are not a true bishop if you're not consecrated by somebody who was consecrated
by somebody who goes back to the ones consecrated by the apostles. We call that
apostolic succession. In Sweden, at the time of the Reformation the first
bishops were consecrated by Roman Catholic bishops, and then they turned
against Roman Catholicism. In Denmark the Roman Catholic bishops were swept
out, and new preachers of the gospel were made bishops. The result is that in
the Church of England today, if a Swedish bishop comes to England, he can
preach in any church in England because he has apostolic succession; but a
Danish bishop is not recognized because he doesn't have apostolic succession.
It's an idea that certain churches hold today. And this idea had its rise in
Irenaeus; but I don't believe that Irenaeus himself had any such idea. If you
read what he said, the purpose was not to say here is a magical power that we
have because hands were laid on us by somebody who had hands laid on him by
somebody going back to the apostles. Yet, he said, "Look at this
Gnosticism—these new ideas here—we can trace ours back directly to the
apostles; look at the line," and that was his argument; it was an argument
against Gnosticism. But from it we learn a good bit about church history that
would otherwise be unknown to us. He didn't think he was writing church
history. His purpose was to show that catholic Christianity, as they called it,
was right and Gnosticism wrong; and it was just an argument he used for it. But
in so doing he gives us the names of these men, the bishops of Rome; we
probably wouldn't even know their names if it wasn't for one or two men like
Irenaeus who gave them for this sort of a purpose. And then:
4. His Attitude toward Other Christian Groups. Irenaeus is a man who hated Gnosticism. He was against all gnostic movements; anything that denied the deity of Christ, that denied the simple facts of Christianity, Irenaeus was out to fight them with everything in his power. But Irenaeus was a man who had the concept of a catholic church in the true sense of the word—that is of a relation, a fellowship with all Christians. Irenaeus went to Rome; he met the Bishop of Rome—we'll take up the Bishop of Rome a little later—but this Bishop of Rome was the first Bishop that really felt that he had great authority; it was a man in Irenaeus' time; and this man was saying, "The churches of Asia Minor observe Easter on a different day than we do. I remonstrated with them, I told them to observe Easter the day we do. I'm going to cut off fellowship with them. I'm going to excommunicate them all." And Irenaeus pled with him. He said, "Don't break off fellowship with great parts of the Christian church." He said, "So long as people hold to the fundamentals and are absolutely separate from Gnosticism, and opposed to that wickedness," he said, "Let's have fellowship with them; let's have collaboration; let's work together for the name of Christ." So Irenaeus was the great conciliator; the great maker of unity among true Christians; and he was the great opponent of Gnosticism and of those who denied the foundations of Christianity.
We
were speaking about Irenaeus, and we mentioned 4, His Attitude toward other
Christian Groups. At that point I did not say a great deal about it, because
there are one or two matters here that will naturally come up under other heads
later; so I simply give this head here as to his attitude—absolutely
unbending—unyielding toward those who deny the fundamentals of the faith, but
opposed to making divisions with other Christians over matters that were minor,
that did not affect the central points of the faith. We will learn that in
connection with these other groups. We go on now to
J. Tertullian. I'm not going to take time for any of you to write down his full name. I don't remember it myself; I have to look it up. But I'll read it to you. His full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, but he was regularly known as Tertullian; and many consider him as the most important writer of the first three centuries of the Christian church. And so it is important that we have a definite idea of who Tertullian was and what he did. His influence is far greater than his realization of it. To many people he is only a name. Actually he is a very, very vital figure in early church history, a figure, however, of which we know little except from his writings. We know a great deal from the writings, but comparatively little any other way.
And of course there is an interesting point there; if in these first two or three centuries, we know very little about these people except about the writers, we can imagine there must have been other very active Christian leaders, who accomplished much for the Lord, but who were not writers; these have simply disappeared; we don't even know their names; or if we know the names, we know nothing about them. So we have a few men like Tertullian, who wrote a great deal and his writings were considered important enough to be preserved; because there were many things written in those days that were not preserved. Doubtless the early Christians wrote thousands of letters to one another; but these letters naturally all disappeared, even as the letters of most of you disappear. Very few of you can tell me where a single letter is, that you wrote ten years ago, or that anybody wrote to you. Certainly for letters 50 or 100 years old, they completely disappear in most cases. And in addition to that of course, the great bulk of the writing in those days was on papyrus, which would disintegrate after a few centuries; it didn't keep a great deal better than our present day paper does. They did not write them on skins of animals or valuable materials; they didn't figure they were that important. But those that came to be considered important, they copied onto durable material. They were preserved. Well, there is no other writer in the first three centuries from whom as much material was thought worthy to be preserved as from Tertullian. Maybe I'd better say the first two centuries, because there is one other running close competition in the next century.
I
hesitated in making this outline for today; I put Tertullian here, and then I
put him over in the next century; I moved him back and forth two or three times.
I found it very difficult to decide which place would be the best to present
him, because he straddles the end of the century. To place him in the second
century, or in the third, is difficult because he straddles between the
centuries, but more than that because his dates were somewhat uncertain. One
writer said that he was born in 160 and converted in 197. I don't know where he
got his precise information. But if that information were true we certainly
would not place him in the 2nd century but in the third. Another writer,
however, says he was born in 150 Instead of 160, and after 30 or 40 years of
licentious life he was converted. Well, 30 or 40 years after 150 would make it
180 or 190 that he was converted. And if he had 20 years of activity in this
century, then certainly it would be worth considering him in the 2nd century. I
don't care whether you put him in the last half of the 2nd or the first half of
the 3rd. Please don't get it further away than that—from the actual time of his
life. Under him
1. The First Latin Theological Writer. Now when you consider that he was not converted until sometime between 180 and 200—say between 170 and 200 AD—and the church of Rome was founded in the day of the apostle Paul, and was an important church 100 years before Tertullian—when Clement wrote the letter on behalf of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth—it may seem strange to you to say that Tertullian is the first Latin theological writer; but the fact is that up to this time, and in fact quite a bit later than this time, the Church at Rome was a Greek-speaking church. Here was Rome, the very center of the Roman Empire, the very capital of the Latin language, and the Christian church there was a church in which Greek was the language of the bulk of the people. They spoke Greek in their conversation; used the Greek language in their services; if they wrote official letters of any sort, they wrote Greek. And Tertullian, though his father had perhaps come from Rome, himself did not live in Italy at all.
It's a very interesting thing that a city which, for over a hundred years, had fought with Rome for supremacy in the world; and finally was utterly destroyed by it; completely annihilated so it was no longer a city; that that city, way over in North Africa, the Romans later rebuilt the city; and this city became a such a center of Latin learning and of life of the people of the Roman civilization and Latin language that it is there that Latin Christian writing really began. Tertullian, who may have been the son of an officer in the Roman army who settled over there near Carthage in North Africa, Tertullian was raised over there, lived all his life in North Africa; and it was there as a writer in North Africa that he raised the foundation of Latin theological literature.
And when we realize that Latin theological literature in the Roman church is still very much alive; and that in the Protestant churches it wasn't as much as 100 years ago that in Princeton Seminary their textbooks in theology were written in Latin; that in Princeton people, within a century of today, were using Latin as their principal language for their theological work; even when I was ordained, it was still a regulation in the Presbyterian Church that a man who was ordained had to present a Latin thesis which he wrote in Latin on some theological point. It stopped soon after that, because by that time it had become just a farce. One of the professors in the seminary, explained it to us; he said, "What you do is, you get two or three good Latin commentaries; get a copy of the Latin Bible; and copy the verse from the Latin Bible; and then he said you put the name, you say "Tertullianus dixit," quote from Tertullian; and you say "Irenaeus dixit," you quote from Irenaeus; and you quote from a few writers, and you have written a Latin thesis.
Well, that was the situation when I was in seminary; but it wasn't so very long before that that they knew Latin well enough to like it. Theological works in Latin. Of course that meant that the whole Christian world was able to read one another's writings in this field; and it was a great advantage in that way. Latin has become a dead language in the last century, except in the Roman Catholic Church, where the priests actively speak it today, the priests who are educated for it. They meet in Rome and have their classes in Latin; still it's a living language among them, for theological and church matters.
Well, the Latin Christian literature, began in North Africa; and the man, more than any other, who began it was Tertullian. So he's a man of great importance in church history if for no other reason. I don't think he just happened to be the first at Rome; there is another man who some say wrote before him, some say he wrote after him, we're not sure. This other man wrote a nice work that was of interest and that's all there is to it.
But Tertullian laid the foundation of Latin Christian language. He had to form theological words in Latin; and he was a man who was a lawyer, a man legally trained, of very, very excellent learning; and he was determined to get words that would exactly express the concept he wanted to express; and if he couldn't find a word that would express it he would make a word. So Tertullian laid the foundation of the words which became our Latin theological vocabulary; and as our Protestant nations developed, and we began to use our own languages, a great many of these words we just took over bodily from the Latin; and consequently a great many of our words in English, German, French, Hungarian and other languages are taken over from the Latin with a slight change of ending perhaps for the theological word; and a great many of them started with Tertullian, for he was the man who selected these words as the best presented to express these particular ideas.
So
Tertullian is a man of great importance then as the first Latin theological
writer, not merely in time, which he probably was, but the foundation of Latin
theological writing. Now
2. His Life. We don't know much about his life. You could safely say he was born about the year 150; perhaps you could say about 160, I don't know; somewhere along in that decade he was born. We have no evidence of the exact year, but we can guess back. He received a very extensive education. It is an interesting thing that here is a man who turned violently against everything that was not thoroughly Christian; so much so, that he attacked the Greek philosophers and Greek literature, and wrote in such a way as to make you think that it was foolish to waste time on anything like that. He said, "What has the academy to do with the church? What has Christ to do with Plato, Jerusalem with Athens?" And he talked that way, as if the Greek and Latin literature and classics had a definite viewpoint they're driving toward; they may all stick together, but on the particular point they're pushing, they push it so hard that, if you take it alone, you get an impression of their denying other points which they are for.
Well, the same is true of Tertullian. He was not a philosopher but a lawyer. He was not a man who sat down in calm, quiet contemplation to determine exactly what the truth is, and then to express it clearly. He was a man who had the passion of determination to get his points across; a man who faced great terrible factors of his day, and determined to do everything he could to destroy them. His faith burned with interest, enthusiasm, passion; it carries you along, makes you feel tremendously the way he feels when he writes. So while of his life we don't know much, his writings were tremendously effective and impressive.
I headed this "His Life" but I've talked mostly about his writings instead of his life. I should continue to say about his life that he became disgusted with certain factors in the church of his day; he became disgusted with the fact that it was too easy for people who had lapsed [abandoned the faith under persecution] to get back in again. He felt that the church, the Roman church particularly, was making it entirely too easy for Christians who had fallen into sin; he speaks in most scathing terms of the bishops of Rome in his day, for what he considered their leniency toward sin; toward the restoration of those who claimed to be penitent; but Tertullian didn't think they gave any real evidence of thorough-going penitence.
And the result was that he, toward the end of his life, joined his activities with a new sect which we will look at later, which we will call the Montanists; and he, in the latter part of his life, was a Montanist. As some books will point out, this is all to the good, because he speaks of the defects of the catholic Church, the general church; and points out its errors toward the end of his life, the type of matters which we would not consider to be errors. He gives a one-sided picture; we have him defending Christianity against paganism, against Gnosticism, against heresy; and we have him attacking the common errors of the day, somewhat in his later life. So we get a picture of circumstances that otherwise we would not get. Most writers who were not in the general line of Christian thought, naturally, their writings weren't preserved. But Tertullian was so fine that most of what he wrote, I believe, has been preserved, even things that people didn't like they copied, and they kept.
So in his later years—I don't know whether we can say he was a member of this sect or not, there's no proof on that—but there was a sect 200 years later, still in North Africa, which called themselves by his name; they called themselves the Tertullianists. Some said that it was a break-off from the Montanists which had followed Tertullian; that he had split from the Catholic church and joined the Montanists, and then had split from the Montanists; and this group which followed him had continued 200 years after that. That we don't know; we have no evidence. We know there was a group called themselves the Tertullianists; it may have been what was left of the Montanists. But it shows the continuing influence of this particular group 200 years after his death.
If you look at any Roman Catholic Church History, you will find Tertullian spoken of—to some extent—in very favorable language, because of the great contributions which he made to the development of Christianity, as all must recognize. But all of our other writers of any importance in the first two or three centuries they call saints; and they don't call Tertullian a saint. It's St. Irenaeus, St. Ignatius—they're nearly all saints in that period—but not Tertullian; because, they say, he lapsed into heresy, so they say, toward the end of his life. There is no proof, as all the standard works in Church History will admit; there is no proof that the Montanists were heretics. They held to the main Gospel of Christianity and held clearly to it.
But his life was—as we can tell from his writings—in three stages. There was the pagan stage, and they say that he lived a pagan, licentious life; though just how licentious it was, we have no proof. Doubtless he'd tell us how grateful he is that Christ had saved him; he looked upon himself as a very great sinner before he was saved. And of course we all are utterly lost apart from the grace of Christ. St. Augustine's Confessions, a century later—one of the most famous works in the world's history—and I've seen works published; you go into one of these bookstores and see Confessions of St. Augustine put out on the bookshelf; put out under the impression that here's something the people will enjoy reading; thinking people want something of smirch; they'll be interested in getting a confession. Well, you read St. Augustine's Confessions, and he confesses how once when he was a boy he went into an orchard and stole a pear; he confesses his terrible sin in doing that; it didn't belong to him; and there are some things in the confession which we feel were definitely reprehensible, like they all are because they were contrary to God's standards of righteousness.
But compared to the average person, Augustine was a paragon of goodness during his life before he became a Christian, compared to the average person. But he recognized that he was a sinner before God, and that nothing he did was worth anything; he deserved eternal death, and he felt very penitent toward the way he had fallen short of God's law. Now that is the case of anyone who really realizes the grace of Christ and what it means. It's often hard to tell in the Christian writer, if we don't know anything but his own writings, whether he really was a man whom the world would consider licentious and sinful; or whether he was a man whom the world would consider a mighty fine type of person, but he fell very far short of the standards of righteousness that God commands.
As far as I know, we have no evidence to know in which category Tertullian was. But he changed, from a life that was lost and headed for hell, to a life in which the grace of Christ alone was his hope of salvation. And he felt such a marked difference that many writers simply take at face value the idea that he lived a pagan, licentious life. Well, he was a pagan, and his life was licentious, as all people are licentious, apart from the grace of Christ. Beyond that we don't know.
I hesitated for a long time whether to take Tertullian first or the Montanists first. Because to understand this at the end of Tertullian's life, you want to know about Montanism; to understand, on the other hand about Montanism, you need to know about Tertullian. So I finally decided to take it in this order. And all we need to know at this point about Montanism is that Tertullian, toward the end of his life, was considered as affiliated with the group; the church as a whole considered Montanism to be outside; and we look more at the Montanists under a separate head.
How did he die? When did he die? We don't know. We read in a writing 200 years later that he lived to be a very old man, but that's 200 years later; maybe it's true, and then again it may be false.
Yes? [student: You said his life had three stages. What were they?] First he was pagan, second was—well, I think you could call it catholic in the old sense—that is, he was a member of the Christian church, had a relationship with the other Christian churches throughout the Roman Empire. He did not recognize any one church as the head or anything like that; but they all had a mutual inter-relationship so that whenever a person went from one of them to another, the bishop of his church would give him a letter of recommendation, and they felt they were all part of the one church of Christ, and they were the church, opposed to Gnosticism, opposed to heresy, standing by the whole word of God. But then the third stage of his life, is where he is working with this Montanist group, but if he actually joined them or whether he remained nominally a member of the catholic church, the texts differ, we don't know, but they differ.
But
at least he is universally regarded as having been one of the Montanist group
the later years of his life, and while he still continued to write very
valuable things in defense of the great doctrines of Christianity, attacking
heresy and paganism, yet he does also write in such scathing terms of the
bishop of Rome and in certain attacks on the catholic church in general, that
it just makes you wonder why they ever kept his writings. We know that they
wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for the fact that he'd been so highly regarded
before, and some of his writings even then were highly regarded. Well, that's
his life.
3. His Writings. The writings come under various heads, because there are different types of writings. There are the apologetic works, in which he pleads the cause of Christendom; there is the great apology which he wrote about 200, which is unquestionably one of the most beautiful manuscripts of the heroic age of the church; a plea for religious liberty, an inalienable right which God has given to every man. I'd just like to read you a quotation of a few words from a translation; of course a translation can't get the exact flavor of the original; yet even in a translation you can see something of Tertullian's style.
In this plea to the Roman officials for Christianity, he says:
["It is quite true that it is our desire to suffer; but it is in the way that the soldier longs for war. No one indeed suffers willingly, since suffering necessarily implies fear and danger… But the day is won when the object of the struggle is gained. This victory of ours gives us the glory of pleasing God, and the spoil of life eternal. But we are overcome. Yes, when we have obtained our wishes. Therefore we conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued.
...
The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed. Many of your writers exhort to the courageous bearing of pain and death—as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca in his Chances, as Diogenes, Pyrrhus, Callimachus; and yet their words do not find so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is the preceptress. For who that contemplates it, is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom of it? Who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines? And when he has embraced them, desires not to suffer that he may become partaker of the fullness of God's grace; that he may obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood? For that secures the remission of all offences. On this account it is that we return thanks on the very spot for your sentences. As the divine and human are ever opposed to each other, when we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by the Highest."
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p 54-55]
His first group then was the apologetic works, defending Christianity against the pagan writers and writing in a way to seek to win them. He originated, for instance, the phrase "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." In fact, he originated many phrases which have passed into current language; they have been quoted and used ever since. Then he wrote many polemic works. He wrote against various types of heresy; various types of gnosticism in particular. He wrote a long work against Marcion, and he became so indignant against—yes? [student: what is a polemic work?] Polemic is from the Greek word polemos which means war; and a polemic work is a work of attack against heresy. It is a regular word in theological works for that type of work; while the apologetic is trying to show the truth of Christianity in general, the polemic is in the attacking area, attacking false views. And his writings against Marcion deals with Marcion's works in detail; he stresses Marcion's errors, finally he becomes so impassioned about Marcion's wickedness that he ends:
["Nothing, however in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there; fouler than any Scythian; more roving than the wagons of the Sarmatians; more inhuman than the Massagete; more audacious than an Amazon; darker than the cloud of Pontus, colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice; more deceitful than the Ister; more craggy than Caucasus. Nay more, the true Prometheus—Almighty God—is mangled by Marcion's blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator than he who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who has gnawed the Gospels to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found." Ibid. p 272]
So you see how his words are filled with these impassioned declarations, the rhetoric of which seems to roll out. It had a tremendous effect in his day. But his thinking also was very keen; and he sees the point, the specific error; he brings it out very, very clearly, as a good lawyer would. When the bishop of Rome, for a time, received a heretic—we look at that later—a man who denied that Christ and the Father were separate, and presented it in such simple language, in such clever language, that he deceived the bishop of Rome for a time; though the bishop of Rome later saw the error, and opposed it; but for a time he deceived him; and this man said, "Jesus and the Father are one person, not two persons, it was the Father who was crucified on the cross." And then when this same bishop of Rome was very strong against the Montanists—who so stressed the work of the Holy Spirit—Tertullian said of this bishop of Rome, "He has driven the Holy Spirit away and crucified the Father." And that's typical of the way he would take the facts and present them in such a way that it would make an impression that people remember, hard to get away from.
His third stage of life, of course, is this stage when he was with the Montanists and he was taking their view; though he was still continuing to write many works similar to those which he wrote in the second stage. He discusses in his writings apologetics, the polemic writings, and then he takes up all sorts of doctrines, and matters of Christian life. Whatever he feels strongly about, he writes on, women's dresses for instance, He writes on second marriage. He writes on the attitude of soldiers in the army if they're Christians, all sorts of things he takes up; and he gets his view in mind, and then presents it in such a way as to drive it home.
I always feel—and I often have stressed the fact—that a Christian worker has two distinct things to do in his Christian work; and I think we should keep them separate. One of these is to decide what we're going to think on certain principles, questions, qualities, attitudes, and interpretations of the word. And that I feel is very, very important that we do this calmly and clearly; we should look at everything we can possibly see against the position we're taking; look at it calmly and fairly, and give it the fullest weight you can; in order to be sure you get absolutely the correct answer on any particular point you take up. I think that's very, very important; and if you do not do that, most of us will get off into false paths and will put much of our emphasis where it will do harm rather than do good.
But some people are so obsessed with that, that they spend all their time trying to decide what the truth is; and when they get through, they have a statement that would be of interest to a philosopher but has no influence on the world. I think we should accept the two phases of our Christian work. First to look at the Bible and study it clearly, carefully, calmly, see what it means, and examine every possible argument against it—and get your decision you're convinced is correct. But secondly, to make it a live force in the world today; and for that in your sermons, in your presentations, you take the truth as you come to believe it is, decide how you can drive it home to hearts, how you can get it across. And in getting it across you will stress emotionally the vital truth that you want to get across.
But I think it's good to keep the two parts of our activity sharply distinct in our attitude; because either of them can interfere with the effectiveness of the other, if they're not kept apart in our thinking. I think Tertullian did that to a greater extent than most people do. Because Tertullian had a very sharp intellect; but he was outstanding for the second, he was outstanding for the way he got across the idea he wanted to get across.
Now,
I'm not saying that we would agree with every one of his conclusions. Everyone
makes mistakes, but he made comparatively a small number. I doubt if nearly as
many as the other writers of the ancient Christian church.
4. Tertullian's
Influence.
Again for the sake of completeness, we give it a point in the outline but we
can't discuss it by itself. Under the other three heads we have mentioned how
great his influence was and how much it
continues to this very day in our whole terminology of theology, and his influence
of course contributed to the driving home the viewpoints that he held, and
making them very important in the life of the ancient church.
K. Montanism. And Montanism is a movement which we would probably not know nearly so much about if it weren't for Tertullian; since the church as a whole rejected the Montanist movement, and until comparatively recently most books of Church History would speak of them as heretics. But after careful investigation, most present-day church histories will clearly state that the Montanists were orthodox on all the great doctrines of the Christian church. But Montanism was a movement which started among some uneducated people in Asia Minor. It started with a man called Montanus. We don't know a great deal about this man called Montanus. You will read in some church histories the statement that Montanus declared that he was the promised paraclete, or advocate of John, he was the helper and comforter in these last times.
Of course if a man came to be the Holy Spirit, that of course would definitely be heretical. But as we look at the later history of Montanism, it does not seem to be a reason to think that from such a start, such a development could have come. And Schaff, for instance who was quite against Montanism very definitely declared that he believed that the adversaries of Montanists wrongly inferred that he claimed to be the organ of the Holy Ghost, but Montanus considered himself the inspired organ of the Holy Ghost, the helper and comforter in these last times of distress and made use of the first person, claiming to be the spokesman of the Holy Spirit, and that his adversaries said that he himself claimed to be the Holy Spirit.
Well it was during the bloody persecution which came about the time of the death of Polycarp in Asia Minor, that he and two prophetesses went forth as prophets and reformers to proclaim the near approach of the age of the Holy Spirit, and of the millennial reign of Christ, in a small village in Phrygia where they said the new Jerusalem was going to come down; and many people of little education followed these, and they became tremendously excited, claimed to be prophesying; and there were what the opponents considered to be very violent scenes among these people; which the opponents claimed had considerable that was licentious and harmful in it, and there may have been. But as Montanism went on, the evidence seems to be, that it developed largely and perhaps even from the first, simply a movement of people who were stressing the main teaching of the Scriptures, putting their stress upon them, also stressing the near-return of Christ, which they thought was coming very, very soon, and were opposing strongly the widespread laxness in the Christian church.
They called themselves spiritual Christians; and those who were not with them they called carnal Christians. Many of the church leaders wrote against them; but the movement spread from Asia Minor; it spread to the west, and the bishops of Rome were hesitant about it; but after some hesitation they came out against it, and declared that it was not a Christian group; it should not be permitted in the church at Rome.
The people in Gaul who were facing persecution and martyrdom took a conciliatory view to them; and they sent their presbyter—afterwards bishop—Irenaeus, to the Bishop of Rome to intercede with him; not to stand against the Montanists, but to recognize them as true, even if little educated, Christians. And Irenaeus seems to have had an influence with the Bishop of Rome for a time, but then he came out strongly against the Montanists.
In North Africa, the Montanist movement spread quite widely. Two of the most distinguished female martyrs of the beginning of the third century were Montanists; and of course when Tertullian joined them, he became the most energetic and influential man among the Montanists; and it tremendously increased their influence, the fact that Tertullian was with them. 200 years later, Augustine said that Tertullian left the Montanists, and founded a new sect named after himself; but this is 200 years later and we just can't be sure. But we know that 200 years later the group in North Africa, which followed Montanist principles to some extent, called themselves Tertullianists; and then Augustine persuaded them back to the catholic church of that time.
The Montanists put great stress on asceticism and church discipline, very, very strict church discipline. They longed for martyrdom, and argued that the finest thing that could happen to a person was to die for the cause of Christ; they were extremely zealous, and doubtless some of them fell into error on minor points; but there is no evidence that any large group fell into error on any vital point of Christian doctrine.
Well,
we've discussed the origin of Montanists, their nature and their stress. There
were many groups in the early days which slid off in one direction or another;
but most of them we know very little about, because naturally their writings
disappeared; but the Montanists—we have the writings against them of various
church leaders; and then of course we have Tertullian's writings.
L. The Papacy in
the Second Century.
And since I used the word papacy, we'll have
1. The word
Pope. That word "pope" in those days does
not mean at all what pope means today; "pope" in those days simply
meant father, and was used of anyone who was considered a spiritual leader; and
this continued for centuries after that time. Gradually it came to be applied
to the great leaders of churches; but then it was used more commonly of the
bishop of Alexandria than of the bishop of Rome, for a long time. They
regularly referred to him as the pope of Alexandria. It's only in medieval
times that it has come to be restricted to the Bishop of Rome. And when I speak
now of the papacy of the 2nd century, I don't mean to imply that anything
similar to the papacy today existed in the 2nd century. But according to the
claims of the Roman Catholic Church, there was something similar to the papacy
today existing in the 2nd century; and so we are looking at the bishops of Rome
of the second century and seeing what we find at that time.
2. The insignificance of most of the Roman bishops in the 2nd century. Now I have here this book of McSorley's, Outline History of the Church. McSorley, as I told you earlier, is a very good Roman Catholic church history. In this book he does not have many pages on the 2nd century, because our knowledge of it is very slight compared with our knowledge of later centuries. Nevertheless he has 18 pages on it; he discusses the Roman Empire at this time; the views of the church; the various councils—there were very few of them—but the various writers, heretics, and so on.
For each century he has a subsection he calls the papacy; in each section he has that, and often it is several pages in length. Here it is a little over a third of a page; out of 18 pages, a little over a third of a page called the papacy. Being so little, I can easily read everything that he says. You'll be interested to see what he says about the papacy in the 2nd century. He starts in with a statement which assumes the Roman Catholic position without proof.
"Several of the 11 popes who ruled the church in the 2nd century..." Now there is no evidence that any pope ruled the church in the 2nd century—no evidence whatever; but these were bishops of Rome at that time, those that we meet. So now listen to what he says about them:
"Several of the eleven popes who ruled the church in the second century were martyred, but excepting" (and here he names three and gives their dates—except for these 3, one of them served 11 years, one for 15 years and one for 10, you see that's about 36 years out of the whole time—except for these 3, he says) "they remain rather shadowy figures with pontificates of uncertain date." 11 popes, he says, ruled the church, but only 3 of them do we know much about. We have the names of the rest and we have approximate dates; but he says they remain rather shadowy figures with pontificates of uncertain date. Then he has six lines about these 3 popes; and when we read what he says about these 3 popes, we find that one of them Polycarp paid a visit to; two of them Irenaeus visited; and that makes them important. Irenaeus was an important man, an important writer. Polycarp was an important man; he was the bishop of Smyrna. You'll be interested to see what he says about them in the 2nd century.
["Several of the eleven popes who ruled the church in the second century were martyred, but excepting St. Anicetus (c. 155- c. 166), St. Eleutherius (175-189), and St. Victor I (189-199), they remain rather shadowy figures with pontificates of uncertain date.
"To Anicetus, St. Polycarp came in order to discuss the dispute between East and West as to the date of Easter; but no decision was reached—'Polycarp could not persuade the Pope, nor the Pope, Polycarp,' says Eusebius. We read that the Christians of Gaul twice appealed to Eleutherius to check the Montanist heresy; and Victor, we know, threatened to excommunicate the Asiatic bishops for their refusal to adopt the Roman usage in the celebration of Easter." ibid., p32.]
McSorley starts in with a statement which assumes the Roman Catholic position without proof. "Several of the eleven Popes who ruled the church..." Now, as I said, there's no evidence that any pope ruled the church in the 2nd century, no evidence whatever. But there were bishops of Rome at that time, those that we named. But now listen to what he says: one of them Polycarp paid a visit to. Two of them Irenaeus visited, and that makes them important. Irenaeus was an important man, an important writer. Polycarp was important, he was the Bishop of Smyrna; his martyrdom made a great impression on the ancient church; and these two important men visited Rome and tell us in their writings; or other writers tell us about their contacts with these bishops; and that's the only way we know anything about these three bishops, or at least about the early church.
Now McSorley, of course, tries to put that in such a way as to show the power of the papacy. And then he quotes Eusebius, "Polycarp could not persuade the pope, nor the pope Polycarp." Well, that doesn't sound as if the Bishop of Rome was ruling the church, if he couldn't persuade Polycarp and Polycarp couldn't persuade him. Then, he says, "We read that the Christians of Gaul twice appealed to Eleutherius," the 2nd of these, "to check the Montanist heresy." He doesn't say he checked it.
Actually, what we know is that the bishop of Rome was stirred by a bishop of Asia Minor to oppose in Rome the activities of Montanism; and then Irenaeus was sent down from France to urge him to go slow on this, and to direct his fire against unbelievers, instead of against men who, while they might be off on certain points, were in doctrine thoroughly Christian. And we know that from Irenaeus, and that's how we come to know anything about Eleutherius.
And then the third one, he says, "Victor, we know, threatened to excommunicate the Asiatic bishops for their refusal to adopt the Roman usage on the celebration of Easter." And this third one, we do know more about than the others; and he was a real Roman; he wanted to rule the world. But you'll get people like that in every kind of organization once in a while. And for the Roman church to run for nearly 2 centuries before it got one, I think that speaks well of it.
But that is what McSorley says about the papacy in the 2nd century. There were many important people in the second century, as we noticed. There were a few important writers; there were a few important martyrs. According to Roman tradition, practically all the popes were martyrs. But no one of them did somebody think it worthwhile to write about, telling about the martyrdom, and sending it about through the Christian world, as they did about Polycarp, or as they did about the martyrdom of some of his friends. They may, some of them, been good church administrators; some of them may have been excellent preachers, presenting the truth in a way that was very effective; but we don't know that they were; we have no evidence about these men; they are, as McSorley says, rather shadowy figures.
In fact, we go for four and a half centuries before we find men in the position of bishop of Rome who are really outstanding leaders in the Christian church. We have many of them in other churches. Now that's not saying but what there might have been very outstanding leaders in the headship of this very important church, in the capital of the Empire; but it so happened in the providence of God that the important leaders were elsewhere during these early centuries.
Now
I'm going to give three numbers, 3, 4, 5, to the three of these bishops who
McSorley says are not simply shadowy figures. These are the three whom I mentioned.
The first, which will be
3. Anicetus (155-166). And Anicetus, McSorley says—he calls him St. Anicetus—the Roman church called all the popes for—I forget the number now, I think it's the first 50 popes—every one of them they call saint; and of the last fifty, there are only two they call saint. I don't think that they would admit that shows degeneracy; what it actually shows is that we know little about them. The fact is that in the last four centuries there have only been two whom the Roman church has felt were worthy to give the title of saint to, but they give it automatically to all the early bishops of Rome.
Now Anicetus he gives the date 155 to 166. Anicetus we probably would know nothing about if it were not for Polycarp. Of course that doesn't mean that he might not have been a very fine Christian leader and a very active man; because Polycarp said of himself that he had served the Lord for 86 years; he had served the Lord and then was martyred; and we know nothing about Polycarp's activities through all those years. From Polycarp's death and from his epistle that he wrote just before his death we can gather that he was a man of tremendous influence, but we just don't have the evidence.
But we find that Irenaeus, who was a pupil of Polycarp, tells us in one of his writings; he says, "When the blessed Polycarp sojourned at Rome in the days of Anicetus, they had some little difference of opinion likewise in regard to other things. They forthwith came to a peaceable understanding on this head, the observance of Easter—having no love for youthful disputes. For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe it the day that Polycarp did, inasmuch as Polycarp had always observed it with John the disciple of our Lord and the other apostles with whom he had associated. Nor could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe, who said he was bound to maintain the custom of the presbyters before him. These things being so, they communed together; and in the church Anicetus yielded to Polycarp, out of respect no doubt to celebration of the eucharist; and they separated from each other in peace; all the courts being at peace, both those that observed and those that did not observe the forces of maintaining peace." That is, here was a dispute over the date of Easter; and Polycarp, prominent in the eastern church, held one system; Anicetus, in common with the west, held a different system; but Polycarp and Anicetus communed together in closest friendship; and Anicetus deferred to Polycarp, who was the old venerable leader of the Christian church in Smyrna; they did not let their difference divide their fellowship over what is the date of Easter.
It's quite different with Victor. Victor declared he was going to excommunicate anybody who doesn't observe Easter when he says it ought to be. But we won't get to Victor till tomorrow morning...
We
were at L, the papacy in the 2nd century. Under that we noticed 1, the word
pope; 2, the insignificance of most of the Roman bishops in the 2nd century.
And then there were three of them, the only 3 of whom we know anything to speak
of in the whole century. So I thought I'd just say a word about the three; so I
made 3, Anicetus. Not to be confused with Anacletus in the first century, of
whom we know nothing, we don't even know whether he was one man or two men. But
in the 2nd century Anicetus we know a very little about, thanks to the fact
that Polycarp listed him. Then
4. Eleutherius (177-190). Eleutherius is interest to us because of the fact that Irenaeus visited him; and that's what makes him known. You see how these bishops of Rome were quite secondary characters, as far as what we know of church history is concerned. Of course, as I said, some of them might have been excellent organizers; some of them may have been fine preachers; they might have been men of real influence in their day; but apparently not men of literary or theological ability such as left something that we would know of later on. The only way we know anything about any of them is the fact that they had a contact with Polycarp or with Irenaeus; and those two men left a mark on posterity, on account of their excellent outstanding character or their excellent writings.
Irenaeus urged him not to make a division against the Montanists; and a strong stand against them was postponed on account of Irenaeus—Irenaeus was not yet at this point a bishop. And that's really about all we know about Eleutherius.
5. Victor (190-202). He is at the end of the century, and Victor was a real Roman. The little we know of him shows him feeling that he is the head of the church in the most important city in the Empire. Rome is the capital of the Empire; the Romans are used to lording it over the rest of the world; and Victor is head of the church in Rome; and when he decides something, he wants the rest of the churches to take notice. He may have been a very estimable man, for all we know; we know very little about him; he may have been a good preacher; he may have been a fine minister; he may have been a very poor minister; we just don't know; but this is preserved about him—in the record—the fact that Victor declares that the Montanists were heretical, and the church would not have fellowship with the Montanists; and Victor declares that all the churches of Asia Minor—the whole eastern section—must observe Easter on the same day that the Roman church did; or they would break off connections with them. He said he would excommunicate them; he would break off communication with them as members of the Church. Excommunicate—break off communication, break off fellowship with them—if they did not observe Easter on the same day as the Romans Church did.
Irenaeus pled with him not to do this; and Irenaeus said, "Don't break off fellowship with a large part of the church on account of a difference over days." Irenaeus said, "The apostles have observed we should judge no one in meat or in drink or in respect of a feast day, or of a new moon or Sabbath day." He said, "Don't break off fellowship with large part of the church for just a matter of form, of the day we observe." But Victor branded the Asiatics as heretics and threatened to excommunicate them.
Irenaeus agreed with Victor as to what the day ought to be. The Roman bishop made no claim to say, "Now this is the day on which all Christians are to observe Easter. I set it down and you're to take it." Nothing like that. In fact, it is very seldom in history that you find a pope claiming the right to lay down rules. The pope claims merely to have the authority to tell us what the true situation is; that is his claim. Of course actually, sometimes, he does lay down rules; but that is his claim, and it's very interesting to see how the pope just before this present one, when he officially proclaimed and declared that Mary had been taken up to heaven—the assumption of Mary. He did not say "I am going to make a doctrine." He didn't say, "I am going to declare this is the thing we should believe," nothing of the kind. He said that he, as infallible teacher, would explain the matter to people just what the truth was on this matter; that's what he said, not that he had authority to lay down the doctrine; to establish something new in any sense; but he claims that this is a tradition handed down from the times of the apostles; and he is giving us an explanation of it we so that we'll know what the true facts are, on account of an authority God has given him to know and understand and explain the true situation, not to make anything new.
It's a very interesting thing about the papacy; while all sorts of new developments have come from the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope has never claimed any right to initiate them; but merely to explain what the true situation is. And so in this case, Victor does not declare, "I want people to celebrate Easter on a certain day," nothing of the kind. In the course of nearly two centuries of Christian history up to the time we are discussing, two customs have developed about Easter; the one custom is the one which has been followed in the east, and which Polycarp said was the practice of the apostle John. And that was the practice of taking the Jewish day, according to the Jewish calendar, of the 14th of Nisan, and that day they observed by fasting; and then they would have in the evening—which of course on the Jewish calendar would be the 15th—and on that day they would remember the great sacrifice, the Son of God in place of the lamb.
So that was the custom in the eastern church, the custom all through the Asiatic churches, and it continued there until about the 4th and 5th century; and it continued in Ireland—that custom—until I believe about the l0th century. It lasted a long time in certain countries. But in Rome, where the Jewish calendar was not known very well; and also where the people not being so accustomed to the Jewish calendar anymore; and being accustomed more to the established Gentile habits; a different custom had developed in the west; and that is the custom which we observe today. It was the custom of having Easter on a Sunday. Now the 14th of Nisan might come any day of the week. But this custom which we have about Easter is a custom of taking a Sunday for Easter, and then having two days before be Good Friday. And that custom of remembering the death of Christ on a Friday, and remembering his resurrection on a Sunday is the custom which came to be followed in the Western churches. And this difference had existed for many decades. And naturally it brought a certain amount of confusion because everybody who came west from the East said, "Oh, the right day is the 14th of Nisan".
Paul remembered the Lord's death as a special remembrance of the Passover, and the people in the West said, "No, it was on the first day of the week that he was raised from the dead." And they said it was three days before that he was crucified; we should remember it at the right time of the week. And we don't care when the Jews hold Passover; what do we care about the Jews' calendar? We observe Easter on the right day of the week, in the springtime. And so in the West they developed a complicated system of saying, "When is the spring equinox—the time in the spring when the day and night are the same length, when is that?" The Equinox. Then they say after that, when is the first full moon? After the first full moon, what's the first Sunday? Well, that'll be Easter, and Good Friday two days before.
You have to be an astronomer to figure that out; or else get your information from an astronomer. A much simpler way would be to simply observe the 14th of Nisan. We observe Christmas on the 25th of December. It may be a Sunday; it may be a Friday; it may be a Tuesday; we don't pay any attention. And that's what the Eastern Church did for Easter. They observed a certain day of the Jewish calendar; but in the West they went by the Equinox, first full moon after that, then the first Sunday after that, so Easter may vary, over a period of a full month, maybe six weeks, from one year to another. But that was the custom the Roman church had.
We're not at the moment so worried in this class about what the right date for Easter is; in fact there isn't any right day for it at all. The important thing is that we remember the Lord's death till He come; and that we remember His resurrection. We do that on the first day of every week; and through the whole week too, I hope. It's rather in the spring—some say—to give particular attention to it; but if there's anything I hate, it's the idea that Easter hymns can only be sung at Easter time; and that we only remember the resurrection once a year, because we certainly should remember it every day. But Victor said, "I'm going to excommunicate these churches; this is heresy if they observe Easter on the wrong day."
And for the first time we see the attitude, which has been characteristic of many a pope, of claiming an authority over the whole world. But I don't think we can properly say that was the attitude of the bishops of Rome in that day. And I think it's quite reasonable to say, "He was a Roman; and he was head of the church in the capital of the empire; and he tended to look down on the people out in the provinces; and when he knew what he thought was right, he was apt to be arbitrary in telling them why." But it made a precedent for later ages; and the Roman Catholic books will quote some Protestant writer as saying that "Victor had an attitude that was really papal." They will quote that and say this proves we had a real pope.
Well,
this early, close to the very beginning of the church you find the pope saying
he had authority over the world. Yes, this is the beginning of the church; 190
AD. 160 years after the death of Christ. 160 years ago would be 1799, with John
Adams president of the US. How many of us would think that that was yesterday?
How many of us know anything about the time of John Adams, except what we read
in books, which may or may not be reliable? How many of us know anybody, who
has told us the things that they know of that happened about 1800? It's a long
time ago, and all sorts of changes can come in by that time. And 160 years
passed before we find evidence of such an attitude; and then pretty much
limited to this one man. It's very, very hard to say that it began at the
beginning of the Christian church. We move on to
M. Conclusion of
our discussion about this century. The situation at the end of the 2nd
century.
1. The Growth During This Century. We do not know a great deal about the 2nd century, but we know far more about it than we know about the first century, aside from the book of Acts, and the epistles. Far more about it, but comparatively little.
We
have a few men of whom we know a good deal, like Irenaeus; and of course we
know a little about Polycarp's death, Ignatius' death; we know Irenaeus'
writing. Tertullian is at the very end of the century, and we know quite a bit
about him; we know from Irenaeus' and Tertullian's writings, and one or two
others, we know a lot about Gnosticism; though none of the gnostic writings
themselves have come down to us [this course was given in 1959, before the Nag
Hammadi materials were widely known]. But we do know that the Christian
movement, which had started in with a few disciples in 30 AD; that this
movement by the end of the century, at least in Asia Minor, was large enough that
it seemed as if the temples were deserted, until Pliny began to be strict and
then they began to be filled up again. Remember how the mob yelled against
Polycarp, later on. But still Christianity was a sizeable movement at the end
of the first century. There was a great growth during the first century, a very
considerable movement. Even in Caesar's household we find Paul speaking, there
being some who believed. But by the end of the 2nd century it had spread until
at that time we know of very substantial groups of Christians in just about
every part of the Empire. And so we'll look at a few of these, just to glance
at them.
2. Principal
Centers of Christianity. Principal centers of Christianity at the end of the
2nd century.
a. Asia Minor. I mention this
because that's the center which we first knew of at the beginning of the
century. Asia Minor was in that day simply called Asia; we have extended the
name to the whole continent, the name the Romans gave to this one small—well,
it's a very good size section, but compared to all of Asia—very small. This
area was the Roman province of Asia. In that section there were various
important subsections, but it was there that Pliny was governor of Bithynia
near the beginning of the century; and he mentioned how many Christians were
there. It was in Asia Minor that Montanism began and spread through many
sections of the Empire. It was from Asia Minor that Irenaeus had come, and of
course had gone clear to France; he was quite a leader in the church of France.
Asia Minor was an important center of Christianity then, and it continued to be
so in succeeding centuries. But the leaders from there are usually spoken of by
their particular section rather than by Asia Minor as a whole.
b. Antioch. We move a little bit east and south and we come to the second largest city of the Empire, Antioch, a very highly populated area until the time of the Turkish conquests, around 1100, 1200 AD. It was an important province and quite a center of Christianity in those days. Today of course it's almost entirely Mohammedan.
Today
there's nothing there; it's just farmland. For Ephesus there's just a very
small town; but Antioch is just gone. But for centuries, Antioch was the second
largest city of the Roman Empire, a very, very important place. It was from
that place that Paul started on his missionary journeys. It was there that the
Christians were first called Christians. It's a very important center, though
we have not said much about it as yet. But we will speak of the bishop of Antioch,
of very great importance during the next two or three centuries. It was a very
important Christian center.
c. Jerusalem. And Jerusalem we mention here only because of its great historic interest, not because it was an important center at this time. It was an important center in the sense that great respect was paid to the head of the church in Jerusalem, but it wasn't much of a church. The reason for that was that in 70 AD the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, and all the Christians fled. They read in the New Testament that when you see the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place where he should not be, flee to the hills.
And some people said, "The abomination of desolation means the evils of the Roman legions; and the Holy Place is Palestine, and the Roman soldiers are coming in; we'd better flee." And others said, "That's not what that passage means; for we find the same teaching in Luke, where he says 'When ye see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, flee to the mountains.'" At any rate, all the Christians seem to have fled from Jerusalem, about 68 AD.
And the Jews in Jerusalem said, "Well, the Messiah is coming soon; he's going to deliver us; look, the Romans gathered in; they've taken northern Palestine, but now they're retreating again; they're going to go off and leave us, we'll be all right." The Christians said, "No, let's get out when we can. Jesus said, 'Jerusalem is going to be destroyed.'" So the Christians left; thousands of Jews had crowded in; and Titus after a long siege took the city; he made that terrible slaughter there; of course, terrible destruction after burning the Temple; and the city was reduced to a city of comparatively little importance.
Gradually Jerusalem regained importance; but in 132 AD, this Jew who said he was the son of a star [kokbah, BDB 456d] described in Numbers [24:17], so they called him Bar Kochba—this Jew at that time gathered a group of Jewish zealots and they had a great uprising against the Romans, which the Romans weren't expecting at all. The little garrison there was defeated, and driven back; they seized a large part of Palestine; they hurriedly built new walls around Jerusalem; but then the Roman soldiers came again, and they attacked Jerusalem and destroyed it; and Bar Kochba and his little group fled out of Jerusalem just a few miles and there made a stand on a hilltop; and there they were seized, and they were all killed.
Then
Hadrian the Emperor said, "We're not going to have any more trouble with
Jerusalem. Twice we've had to put down rebellion; they'll never again do
that." So he said, "It won't even be called Jerusalem any more; it
will be called Aelia Capitolina, after one of the names of the god Jupiter; and
where the Temple used to stand, we're going to have a pagan temple." And
he said, "No Jew is going to be allowed to come within ten miles of the
city on pain of death." But strangely, he recognized that the Christians
were different from the Jews; and any Christians could go into Jerusalem that
wanted to, even if he had been a Jew. He was now considered a Christian,
regardless of whether he was a Jew or a Gentile Christian; he could go into
Jerusalem. But a Jew could not. However, the city had been so destroyed at this
time; and such havoc wrought in Palestine; that the Jews had their great center
in Tiberias up on the Sea of Galilee; that became their center of rabbinic
learning after the fall of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem remained a comparatively
insignificant place; it never was a great important Christian center, because
it never became a great important city; but the head of little Christian church
in Jerusalem had a standing of awe throughout the Christian world, because of
the great importance of Jerusalem to antiquity. So Jerusalem we mention because
of the honor that is always accorded to the city of Jerusalem; but not because
it was an important center in these particular things.
d. Alexandria. It is that place, little mentioned in our course till this time, and that is Alexandria. And that is down here where the Nile empties into the Mediterranean Sea. There is a port there built by Alexander the Great and named after him Alexandria. The city of Alexandria in northern Egypt was one of the great cities of the Roman Empire. It was quite a cosmopolitan city; I believe there were about 200,000 Jews in the city of Alexandria, out of the million and a half of people, of Egyptian and Greek background. It was a very highly cultured city; it had one of the great libraries of the ancient world in it; and in this city of Alexandria, it's the only one of the great centers that didn't claim some apostle had established Christianity in it. Later on, they seemed to talk about St. Mark as the patron of it, but certainly no one of the apostles was credited with having ever gone to Alexandria by tradition.
For Alexandria, we don't know when the church started, or how it started; but at the end of the second century, it is a very important church; and there are many congregations in Alexandria. And Egypt is one of the great Christian centers, and continues to be so until the Mohammedan conquest. So Alexandria is a very important place in the Christian history of the next two or three centuries; and it is good for you to have it in mind.
Then
from Alexandria we move westward a distance across the desert, then we go
north—quite a hump there
e. North Africa
(Carthage).
In the area of North Africa—not the northern half of Africa, nor even the
northern tenth—it's the hump that reaches north of the rest of that. It is
about south of Italy, a little bit west. And there's the reason why we call
North Africa the region where the Romans had important colonies; the remains of
the old Punic people were there—the people from ancient Carthage—and it was a
great center at this time of culture and of learning and of Roman civilization;
and it was there that Latin was first used as an important theological
language. Greek continued to be the language of the Church of Rome for decades
after this; but Latin is the language of the churches in North Africa; we've already
noticed Tertullian, the great writer of the North African church. After him you
will have two more characters of tremendous importance; one of them—certainly
one of the two or three most important characters all of ancient church
history—if not in all church history—from North Africa.
f. Gaul. This was the
name used then; the modern name is France. This area we would probably not know
anything about in those days, if it were not for one man who lived there of any
importance; and that was Irenaeus. But through his writing, we know that Gaul
had a bishop preceding Irenaeus, who was over 90 when he was martyred for the
faith. It had a number of churches; it had a thriving Christian group, which
sent Irenaeus to represent them in Rome on various occasions. So already at
this time, the church in Gaul was an important church; though in our ancient
church history, we have comparatively little mention of it aside from Irenaeus.
And then
g. Rome. And the churches of Italy; bound to be of importance, because it is the great capital of the empire; even though the church was largely a church of foreigners, even after 2 or 3 centuries of having a church there, they didn't speak Latin; they spoke Greek. They were mostly people who had come in from elsewhere and were living there. It was a foreign church in Rome.
When Hudson Taylor began the great missionary work in China, some people thought it was quite disgusting the way he operated, because of course his interest was to get to the Chinese people. The other missions were all in the ports, and he wanted to go inland—and he called it the Inland Mission. Well, he went inland; and he comes to a great inland province, with no churches in it; no Christians whatever; and he comes to a populated village—a few thousand people—and he goes right through it; doesn't even try to start a church, or speak to anybody there or anything; he goes right on; he comes to a larger city; he doesn't stop there; he heads for the capital of the province. And after a long trip he gets to the capital of the province; and there he starts in to try to convert people, to build a church.
And people said to Hudson Taylor, "Why do you pass by all these villages? Why do you go by these big cities, and don't try to start a work there? Why do you go right to the capital?" And Hudson Taylor said, "If I go to the capital of the province, and I gather all those people around me, and I teach them about Christianity, and I get a Christian church started; then, after we've done that, we can go to one of these larger cities of the province, smaller than the capital; and we go and they say, 'What is this anyway?' They say, 'Oh, this is something come down from the capital; they've got a church up there in the capital; they want to bring us a message.' Then they say, 'Oh, something that's come from the capital; we want to hear about that.'" Then, he says, "After we get it in the larger cities, then they go to the smaller cities and they say, 'oh, it comes from that important town over there'; they go down to the villages and say, 'it comes from the city.' But if they did it the other way around, start in the village and then go up to the city, 'what's this?' 'Oh, something they got in that little village; oh that's some sort of an outlandish thing, of no special importance.'" He says it's quite hard to get a hearing. It's no harder to get started in the capital than it is in a little village, perhaps easier. But once you get started you have a center, a springboard from which you can reach out.
I mention that story not to give you ideas about missionary methods—though it may have a valuable purpose in that regard—but simply to illustrate the fact that in spite of themselves, the Roman Christians would inevitably have a real influence in the Empire, because they were in Rome; even if they were the most unimportant people in Rome, they were at the capital of the Empire; and anything that people could say, "Oh, this comes from Rome," would have a great importance. Just like you go out to somewhere and you say, "Here's something that's just come from Podunkville." You say, "Oh, who cares." But "Here's something that's just come from New York." "Oh, my, let's hear about it." Even if it's the least important thing in the whole city of New York, the name of New York will give it a standing all through the United States.
Similarly,
the name of Rome had a standing all through the Roman Empire. And so the Romans
inevitably assumed a place of real importance; and the remarkable thing is
that, after two centuries we have hardly a Roman Christian—that is a member of
the Roman church—who has been of much importance as an individual. Hardly any.
Clement we know nothing about, except his excellent letters. There are all
sorts of traditions about his life, but we don't know whether there's truth to
them or not. McSorley says of the bishops of the Roman church in the first
century, we don't even know how many there were; we don't know anything about
them. In the second century they are all shadowy figures; three of them we
happen to know about because Irenaeus and Polycarp visited them. The Roman
Bishop, under normal circumstances, would automatically have assumed a vital
position because everybody would naturally look to the capital. But for two
centuries their influence had been comparatively small.
We noticed the situation at the end of the 2nd century; and in the 3rd century it is substantially the same, at the beginning of the third, as it was at the end of the 2nd.
In
1900, December 31st, 1899 ended, and January 1st, 1900 began; and all over the
country everybody felt a new century has started. What would come, what would
happen? But when the beginning of 200 AD came, nobody took that attitude, not
even the Christians; they didn't even know a new century had started. Our
system of centuries wasn't even invented until 200 years later. But for us it
is a convenient division; and it is particularly a convenient division because
of the fact that the Roman Empire had a natural division in its history of 193.
And 193 was the time when everybody knew that a great thing had occurred in the
Roman Empire.
A. The Roman Empire. Now perhaps that important thing was the fault of Marcus Aurelius; I think it was, but it may not have been; it may have been other circumstances entering in. But you remember that Marcus Aurelius, instead of following the good custom of his predecessors all through the century: selecting a man of outstanding character, and adopting him as his successor, Marcus Aurelius passed on his power to his son, Commodus—his unworthy son. And this, one of the finest men, according to everybody's judgment, who ever sat on the throne of the Roman Empire, was succeeded by one of the worst.
Commodus was a cruel and bloodthirsty tyrant, who reigned for over ten years; the Empire was solid and secure, steady; they'd had a succession of good emperors; but people got more and more dissatisfied and disgusted with him. He did not persecute the Christians, you remember; he freed the Christians from their dungeons and their prisons, because his concubine, Marcia, had for some reason—a desire perhaps to help her conscience for the wickedness she was doing, she thought she'd do some good—persuaded the emperor to stop the persecution. So this wicked emperor was not a persecutor of Christianity.
But he was killing many people; and the day came when the chief of the Praetorian Guard—they guarded the palace of the Caesar and his particular establishments in Rome—the chief of the Praetorian Guard happened to glance at a paper lying face down on Commodus' table; he saw it was a list of those who were to be murdered the next day, and he saw his own name on the list. And he decided that, rather than be victim of a murder, he'd rather be the instigator of a murder. So he and one of the others who were on the list killed Commodus. That put an end to Commodus' wicked reign; and the Senate immediately proceeded to elect a very good man as emperor; but the Senate did not have the power to elect an emperor.
The power of the emperors rested on force; and though the office had been passed on for a century, from one man to the other for his excellence—a good man selecting a good man to succeed him—this tradition was not in effect now; there was not a powerful man making the decisions. The Senate made the vote and chose an excellent man, but the Praetorian Guard—after the upheaval and turmoil of Commodus' reign—weren't satisfied so they killed him. And they felt, "We've got the power here; we can have anybody emperor we want. We will sell the emperorship to the man who is the highest bidder." So one of the Roman Patricians thought he would like to be emperor; he came and offered them money; they had 1 or 2 offers, and they auctioned off the emperorship; they got a large amount of money from the man with the highest bid, and they proclaimed him emperor.
But
if the Praetorian Guard wouldn't recognize the Senate's right to select the
emperor, the rest of the army wouldn't recognize the Praetorian Guard's right;
and so we have three different legions that converged on Rome, each of their
commanders thinking he ought to be emperor; and there is a period of chaos in
which 2 or 3 of them are killed in the fighting and so on; and it ends up with
1. Septimius Severus (193-211) establishing himself as emperor.
Now we have the stability of the 2nd century ended by this catastrophe. You have the continuity of one emperor choosing the next and so on, come to an end.
And you have a new man—a man from Africa—a man who was a lawyer, and then he was a general; he was a good general, and he manages hold his power till his death in 211, when he passes it on to his son. But it starts a new era. And in the succeeding century we have a great succession of emperors, with many of them only lasting a year or two before they are assassinated. The bulk of the emperors are assassinated during this period; and it is an end to the fine stability and good government which characterized Rome during the 2nd century; and yet the general stability of government continues through this next century. You have in general a very stable situation; and a very great amount of freedom, for traveling through the Empire, for distribution of literature and so on, with occasional bursts of persecution. Septimius Severus reigned from 193 to 211; there is no direct evidence of his making any efforts to start a persecution until the beginning of the next century. But we do find that an Alexandria leader made the statement, "many martyrs are being burned or imprisoned or beheaded before our eyes." Now this statement which this Alexandrian made is maybe after—the date is gone—a little later; but so far as our historical evidence goes, the persecution didn't start until Septimius had been emperor about ten years; but in the beginning of the next century, in 202, Septimius Severus enacted a rigid law against the further spread either of Judaism or Christianity. Nobody could adopt Judaism or Christianity as a religion.
Now there has been much argument, "What did he mean by it? Does this recognize people who have been Christians have a right to be?" Others say, "No it simply says you can't become a Christian; it doesn't matter when you did; if you became a Christian 30 years before, you had changed your religion and were subject to penalty under his law." Whatever the case is on that, we have no way of finding out; but we do know that the statement has come—while it may not be very true at the end of this century, it is certainly true at the beginning of the next. There was violent persecution in Egypt and in North Africa.
There was violent persecution, and a theologian in Alexandria was beheaded; and his son rushed out of the home and said, "I want to die with my father, I am a Christian too." His friends managed to persuade him not to go and denounce himself to the authorities, but to live for Christ; and this young fellow, was 16 years old; there were 4 or 5 children in the family; the mother and the children were left without his father, so he had a responsibility to try to help the family to survive at the father's death. And this young man was persuaded; and for the next 50 years he became one of the great leaders of the Christian Church, and then finally suffered in the great persecution in the middle of the century. You have a separate discussion of him later; his name was Origen.
But I mention that his father was killed in this persecution. There was a virgin, of rare repute of body and spirit, who was taken and cruelly tortured; she and her mother were slowly burned in boiling pitch. One of the executioners, possibly smitten with sympathy, shielded them somewhat from abuse, and after their death, embraced Christianity; and then he was martyred. In Carthage there were some people—some of them Montanists—who were seized and put into prison, and many of them were killed.
A
woman was taken to the prison with her babe in her arms, and killed there. A
slave woman, Felicitas, was delivered of a child while in the dungeon there;
and she cried out in pain, and the jailer said, "Well, what's the matter
with you? You can't stand this ordinary pain that women have, you're yelling in
such misery; how do you think you're going to stand the torture? Why don't you
sacrifice, and get out of this prison?" Well, she said, "Now I'm
suffering; but what I'm suffering is my lot to suffer. I can hardly stand
it." But she said, "Tomorrow, I'll be suffering for another."
And so the next day they put her out with the others, to be cast to the wild
beasts; and she let out never a sound; she met her death, feeling that Christ
was with her as she met this terrible torture.
2. Caracalla
(211-217). And
this same situation of persecution continued during the reign of Septimius
Severus' son, Caracalla, familiar in Roman history. He reigned the next six years,
211-217; he is not important to church history, because the persecution
continued to some extent but we have no particular reason to think that he was
much interested in it; nor was it as severe as during the reign of his father.
Caracalla did considerable important building in Rome. If you're ever there
now, you see the great baths of Caracalla, where thousands of Romans used to
go; and today they have great concerts there in the open air. You see the signs
all over—the great ruins still there from the baths of Caracalla—but in church
history he is not very important. He was succeeded by a man, who perhaps we
should mention in this list, though he's not of great importance in church
history,
3. Elagabalus
(218-222).
Now Elagabalus did not take any great interest in Christianity. But perhaps he
had a part in the spread of Christianity in this way: he was a great lover of
oriental religion. And he brought an idol from Syria to Rome, and he declared
this was the great god—all Romans should worship it. And then he took Minerva,
the great goddess of war among the Romans, and declared that this heathen idol
from Syria was going to marry Minerva. And so there was a wedding between this
idol from Syria and the great Roman goddess Minerva; and then after a little
while, this Syrian god divorced Minerva, and got another goddess from North
Africa. And the fact that the ancient gods of Rome were thus insulted, and the
worshippers compelled by the emperor to bow down to this oriental deity—a very
violent oriental deity—may have weakened the general public belief in the power
of Roman gods. If the leading gods of Rome could be treated in this way by this
abandoned youth who engaged in all kinds of vices and follies... So finally
somebody put end to his misery in 222. And he was succeeded by a cousin called
4. Alexander Severus (222-235). He was about as different as any man could be from Elagabalus. He was a man of culture and of humanitarianism; he put up on the walls of his palace and on the public monuments, the moral, "As ye would that men should do, do ye even so to them." And in the palace chapel, along with the statues of the gods of Rome, he put up one of Abraham and one of Jesus Christ. He worshipped all gods; they all were good. People were exhorted to live good lives and be decent people. He liked this out of the New Testament so much that he put the Golden Rule up all around; and he put Abraham and Christ up along with the Roman gods.
Naturally,
there was no persecution during his reign; but there was opposition to
Christian claims of Christ, belief in Christ, which might be worse in its
effect on Christianity than persecution. He was assassinated in 235; and his
assassin was a man who'd been a herdsman and then a soldier; he was not a man
of special importance to the church; I think we'd better mention him though,
because of his relation to Christianity here.
5. Maximinus
(235-238).
He reigned hardly any time. But Maximinus—this brutal soldier who assassinated
Alexander Severus and took power—felt because Severus had been good to the
Christians, he figured they were on Alexander's side; so he persecuted them
just on general principles. So the Christians suffered during his brief reign,
and according to one tradition there were thousands of Christians martyred:
11,000 virgins killed in Gaul during his reign; and you'll see the picture—it
must be true because I've seen the picture of that reign—picture up there on
the wall of a museum, showing these 11,000 virgins. Present-day historians
think it probably was 11 of them who were killed, and that it has become
exaggerated to 11,000. We just don't know of course; we don't know much about
the situation. He was not so much an enemy of the Gospel; he simply was a cruel
sort of fellow who disliked anybody that his predecessor had treated decently.
We won't say anything about the next ruler who reigned for six years but the
one after that I'll mention here as
6. Phillip the
Arabian (244-249).
He was supposed by some to be a Christian. Origen wrote letters to him and to
his wife, and he was considered by many to be a Christian. These emperors that
we see during this period of 50 years are not of great importance in Christian
history, but the general situation is important. The big persecution under
Septimius Severus, and intermittent general imperial liking of Christians—even
putting up a statue of Christ—and then the successor killing and persecuting;
it's a time of uncertainty, a time when things can change very rapidly; and it
ends in our next part; right in there is a great persecution which I'm going to
deal with as a separate heading. So this is all we'll speak of the Roman Empire
at this point, this 50 years of the history of the Roman Empire. I'm not going
to continue with the Roman Empire in this century till we look at the events in
the first half of the century. So we go on to
B. Monarchianism. That is a word which to peop1e today conveys no meaning at all. Actually, it means one power, one control; and it's used for a view of those who were afraid of the idea that God and Christ and the Holy Spirit, were actually three gods; and so in opposition to that danger—and it is a very real danger into which people fall when they don't think the thing through and see what the scripture really teaches—because Christianity, like Judaism, and Mohammedanism, stands very, very, strongly on the principle there is one God, and one God alone.
But Monarchianism carried the great Christian teaching of their being one God to the extreme point where it lost the separateness of the persons—the fact that this one God from all eternity consists of three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And this was a matter which, at the end of the second century and the beginning of the third, exercised a great deal of attention in the Christian world. There were various individuals who felt that they had the answer to the problem; you'll meet them today. These people who say, "Oh, I get all confused about this." As one man said to me once, "It says in the Bible to baptize in the name of the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Then you go on and you actually baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." So he said, "That's what the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit is—the Lord Jesus Christ." And I've run onto people who are baffled by this problem—they think they've got a new answer to it—and the new answer they've got is usually one somebody had back in the 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th century; and the people thought through these and saw they were nothing. That's one great value of studying church history: to see the various explanations which have been advanced sometimes by good people, backed by the intellectual crowd; and sometimes by bad people, moved to injure Christianity by leading it off on a side track. But in any event, things which when thought through, are seen to be wrong; and they were abandoned by the church some time during its long history.
Well,
this is a period when this exercised people's thoughts a great deal:
Monarchianism. And it is often said that Monarchianism at that time was in
three different types. I'm sure no one at that time called it three different
types; they thought of this man's teaching, that man's teaching, the other
man's teaching. But certain of these peoples sort of got together, and felt
themselves to have this in common; and as we look back at it now, it can be
divided into three main types.
1. Dynamic Monarchianism. This Dynamic Monarchianism is the view that there was one Father, God; and highly educated people didn't think of Jesus as God, because there's only one God. And so a man named Theodotus was one of the first to strongly present this view, a man who came from Asia Minor, or just across the Bosporus from Asia Minor, in Europe. He came to Rome, and he gathered people around him. He explained his views, too; and they felt this man had the real explanation. But as he went on, he went so far as to say that Christ, being only a man, acted upon by the power of the Holy Ghost, was inferior to Melchizedek, who was the chief of the angelic hosts. And thus God was the power; and He used Jesus Christ, who was a very fine man; he was endowed with divine wisdom and power, but he was not God. Now this view, Dynamic Monarchianism, got quite a few followers in Rome. The Bishop of Rome said, "Jesus is God; it is clearly taught in the Scripture; there's no question of it; these people are not Christians. They are not to participate in our communion service; they are not to be recognized as true Christians by our people." He would excommunicate them—cut off fellowship with them—because they definitely were denying one of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.
Now
the second form of Monarchianism, Tertullian gave a name to it; and that name
is generally used today to indicate it. It's called
2. Patripassianism. They didn't use that name themselves; they certainly wouldn't use such a peculiar name. Now this word, as you immediately recognize, means "the father is suffering." And this, in a way, went to the opposite extreme of the Dynamic Monarchianism, but the net result was about the same.
Jesus Christ was God the Father; He was not a mere man whom God used; He was God the Father. And there's no difference between God the Father, and God who was on earth here and suffered and died for us. This is a much less anti-Christian view than the first one, because it recognized Jesus as God. But it denied the distinction of persons between Jesus and the Father. This can be made to appear much more Christian than the other view. And its two leading followers came to Rome, and they declared this was the true interpretation; the first of the two was a man named Praxeas—famous because Tertullian wrote an article against him—and the first clear statement of the doctrinal trinity we have from a non-Biblical source was by Tertullian in opposing the ideas of Praxeas; he calls the writing just Against Praxeas, Contra Praxeas.
Now this Praxeas was called a confessor—a term that came into use then; a martyr was a man who had died for Jesus' sake. A confessor was a man who had been brought before the court and accused of being a Christian, and who said, "Yes I am"—he confessed the faith, but for some reason or other he was let go. He might have been tortured some, and let go; there might have come a stop in the persecution; something might have happened; but often they didn't want to kill a lot of people, they wanted to make a few examples in order to scare everybody. But a man who was a confessor was accorded a high regard all through the Christian church; the fact that he wasn't a martyr was due to some other circumstance than himself; he had boldly confessed the truth in the face of danger of martyrdom. Now Praxeas had done this, and that gave him great prestige. And when he came from Asia Minor to Rome, and he was a confessor, people recognized him as a man who really stood for the truth; and he had been willing to suffer for it; and he taught the absolute unity of Go;, and the Bishop of Rome—the successor of the one who had dealt with Dynamic Monarchianism—thought this man would be a help in his opposition to those who denied the deity of Christ. This man said, "Yes, Jesus is God; he is very God; he is the God who reigns over the universe; that's not just a man; that's no man, that's God." I don't whether he actually said Jesus was God the Father, but he made that when the Bishop of Rome supported him.
Tertullian said that the Bishop of Rome had driven the Holy Spirit away—meaning that he opposed the Montanists who made much of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit—and that he had crucified the Father—meaning that he had considered that Jesus actually was the Father when he was crucified. And so this Praxeas, his name has a place in church history much more than Theodotus, because of his importance in Tertullian's attack, and the fact that the Bishop of Rome was misled into supporting him for a while, though he then saw his error and turned against him eventually.
And Praxeas had an associate named Noetus; and Noetus took the teaching of Praxeas and tried to make it less objectionable. He said, "No, the Father didn't suffer; there's one God; this talk about 3 persons is all nonsense; this is one God. And it is this one God the Father, who in the person of Jesus suffered on the cross." But he said, "You can't call Him the Father, because He was manifesting Himself in a different way; so it isn't right that you say the Father suffered on the cross."
Well
that is a distinction that is rather difficult to draw; and when you get it
drawn, you wonder whether there's anything there actually; it is a step in the
direction of the next, the third type of Monarchianism. And the third type of
Monarchianism is one which lasted longer than either of these first two. The
second lasted longer than the first, and made more stir at the time. It
deceived more people; but the 3rd one lasted still longer, and the name is
still used to this day. We call it
3. Sabellianism or Modalism. Now Sabellianism is not like the first two, which are named after the views of the sect; this one is named after the man who originated it. This man's name was Sabellius; and you will find in theological works—even at the present day—we will find, people will accuse someone else of Sabellianism. You're not apt to find the other two mentioned; they are dead theologically.
Now Sabellius was a presbyter from Libya, in North Africa; and Sabellius, like most people who felt they had something really important, came to Rome. Rome was the center of the empire, the place where intellectuals and where people of importance congregated; and someone who had an idea in mind he thought was vital came to Rome to spread it. So Sabellius came from North Africa, and he was active at the same time as these others—the first fifteen years of the third century. But Sabellius said that there is one God, and this God reveals Himself in different modes. There's no such thing as three persons existing from the very beginning, but there is one God who show showed Himself as the Father as He revealed Himself to Abraham; He shows Himself as the Logos when He comes to earth for the earthly ministry, and when He dies on the cross; He shows Himself as the Holy Spirit when He comes upon the disciples at Pentecost.
These are just different ways of His manifesting Himself. Like I'm here on the platform; I am showing myself as a teacher. I am acting in the capacity of a teacher here. If one of you would make a disturbance and would confuse the rest, I would immediately put a stop to it; it would be my function; it would be my duty here. Now I attend lectures every now and then, on the latest archeological discoveries, at the University of Pennsylvania. And when I go there, I am in the function of a listener. I sit there; and as I sit over in one corner, if somebody over in the other corner were to make a disturbance, I would be very much disgusted; but the chances of my settling anything would be very slight. That would not be my function there. I would be quite irritated if the man who was on the platform did not put a stop to it. But I would have no authority to put a stop to it; I would be displaying myself in a different function altogether. Now I go and climb a mountain over in Switzerland, or out in California, and I'm in a different function altogether over there. If I give any lectures there, I give them to the birds, to the mountains, to the sky; I don't give them in that function as a lecturer; and it is a different mode, different ways of showing myself; and all of us are in different functions in different situations; and yet we are the one person, the one entity; sometimes it's hard to combine all those entities—different theories in your mind—into the one entity, but it is one entity.
But that is his conception of God, Sabellianism. God displayed Himself in different activities, but He is the only the one person, the one God; and actually, Sabellius said, "The Logos was God the Father, because the display as the Son, the Redeemer, was a greater way of manifesting Himself than as the Father who talked to Abraham and to Jacob." So said Sabellius; this was the greater manifestation of God; God was the sub-manifestation of the Logos manifestation, they would call it, as the manifestation of the Father. But they were just different manifestations.
Now this Sabellianism appealed much to people; they felt the great importance of standing by the unity of God against the errors of heathenism. It has had a great appeal through the ages. It's the emphasis on God's unity; God's power; God's individuality; but it loses the person of Christ, who is our friend; our companion; who dies specifically for us, as one of us. And that of course makes impossible, in the true understanding, the atonement; because Jesus has to be one of us, or how could he bear our sins?
So it strikes at the foundation of our true Christianity; but it has had a great appeal for people through the ages, and has been one of the heresies which has recurred from time to time all through the ages; and if you have very much experience with the church, one of these days you'll find some bright person in your church who'll say, "Oh, I'm so puzzled about this, how can there be three Gods? After all, we believe in one God; and you know, I think I've found the answer." And he'll tell you what he's worked out, and he'll think that. And if he does, don't say, "Oh, you heretic, get out of the church; we don't want any heretics around here." Say, "Well, now this is fine, that you're thinking about these matters, that you're studying these problems and trying to work them out; and the solution you suggested is one that has appealed to people at various times. Back in the third century there was a man who came forward with that, a man named Sabellius; and many people thought it was wonderful; but the more the church thought about it; the more they studied the Bible; the more they saw it was not a satisfactory explanation," and show him how this bright new idea he came up with is one other people have come up with; but that people after they studied the Bible found it wasn't right. And he'll be grateful to you for helping to clarify his mind on it.
And don't go at it in a way that would solidify his attitude, and make him think he is persecuted for his desire to think the thing through, and for his desire to really understand. Then he makes it known to just a little group of dissatisfied around him, and either forms a little sect, or he goes off and joins some heretical group. There's a place where your knowledge of church history is helpful to people; it helps people who are groping for an understanding, but who groped in the wrong direction, to bring them back to a clear understanding of God's Word.
And many people—as they grow—have gone in one or another false direction; and then other people have had to think about them and find out where they were going. And so Sabellianism as a specific force began at that time, but it's not a continuous movement; it's simply a viewpoint which has occurred and recurred from time to time. We find it coming out again in New England a hundred and fifty years ago—the Unitarian movement, one God, the unity of God, not Christ as separate, the great leader Christ. God was true God, and the early Unitarians in New England would be considered markedly orthodox today; the modernists would look on them as old fogies—almost fundamentalists. But they had made a variation at a vital point; and they started off on a false direction; and after many decades New England Unitarianism became a movement which gave up completely the Deity of Christ; then the Atonement; then they gave up the Bible; in many areas the Unitarians today are simply humanistic churches that have no belief in a personal God at all.
The founders of Unitarianism would be shocked and horrified that Unitarianism would ever develop as it has today. But it began to deviate from clear Christian teaching, but it's another of this same viewpoint which we find as early as 200 AD, coming in through the church, and misleading many intelligent people desiring to understand the truth better. But getting started, and then little by little getting further and further away from the creeds of the Church.
Now
those are the three different types of Monarchianism that you need to know
about; but I want to mention under this head one particular Monarchian, because
he attracted very considerable attention a little later than the period at
which these three were such vital forces at Rome. You notice all 3 of these
were very prominent in Rome during the first fifteen years of the century. But
it was a few years later that there was a Bishop in Arabia named
4. Beryllus of Bostra. Beryllus of Bostra was nearer, perhaps; well he was a combination of these three varieties of Monarchianism. He taught that Jesus' personality was purely human; it did not exist before his incarnation. The divinity of Christ was derived from the Father; he was not a separate person of the Godhead. God the Father used the human personality of Jesus to produce the seed of Christ who is the foundation of our religion. Beryllus thought he had worked out an answer to the problem; he presented his views and was very strong; he had many supporters, and the bishops of other towns decided this is a very dangerous tendency; people should be informed of the error.
So they assembled a synod at Bostra in 244; the synod met there, and the bishops from quite an area came together; and they asked him to describe his view to them; and they examined it and declared it was a false view; it was a non-Christian view, and so a view which should not be held in the church. And this they did at this synod in 244; but Beryllus was unconvinced, He was unconvinced, and it looked as if the result would be that even if most of the Christians in Bostra were to say Beryllus is wrong, there would be a few there who would say he is right; and he would probably take them and form a separate church outside of the catholic church; or if the people, the majority of them, would think so highly of him, and think he must be right, they would separate their church from the alliance, working with the other churches, so that the great mass of churches, the all-embracing, the catholic church (the term used in that day) would have to look on the church at Bostra as a heretical church, a church outside the fold.
But right at this point, when they didn't know which of these two things would happen; Beryllus had listened to them, had been condemned by them; but he still held his views, a man who was present who was not a bishop, but was a teacher named Origen—of whom we will speak more later—this Origen asked if he could not talk privately with Beryllus about this matter; and the synod said, "Yes, before pronouncing judgment we will wait; we will adjourn for a few hours and let Origen talk personally with Beryllus." And Origen talked with Beryllus and discussed his ideas and examined the Scriptural evidence in relation to it.
And when they got through, the synod reconvened; and Beryllus came before them and told them that he would like to acknowledge that he had been wrong, that his interpretation had been quite untrue and contrary to the Scriptures; he had been misled by his own thinking on the matter; and Origen had convinced him of his mistake, and he wanted publicly to thank Origen for helping him verify Scriptures and show him where he was wrong. Well, we will speak more of Origen later. I just mention at this point one of the great services that he rendered to the Christian church at that time.
So
we go on now; but before we get to Origen, we'll go back to Rome again and take
C. Hippolytus. And Hippolytus is a most controversial figure. He is one concerning whom there have been many, many different viewpoints. He was probably the greatest scholar of the Roman church in the first few centuries. He wrote in Greek. The Roman church at this time, as you know, was a Greek speaking church; its writings, all these things we know about it, practically, are in Greek, at this time; even though Rome was the very capital of the land before there was a Greek-speaking church. It was in North Africa that they used Latin to write theological works; but Hippolytus is the greatest scholar of the first three centuries in Rome.
He is a man who is not as great a scholar as Tertullian or Irenaeus or any one of some of these other great ones; but he is a man of very high caliber, as a scholar, as a writer, and an influence; and we find references to him in church history written in the east, like Eusebius' Church History, where they refer to him as a bishop; but his name does not appear on the list of the bishops of Rome. Sometimes he is referred to as a bishop, sometimes referred to as a presbyter, often referred to as a great scholar. And the Roman church thought so highly of him that they recognized him as one of their great saints; and in the middle ages, when the great period of superstition came, saints were idolized and looked to for help and every sort of virtue, Hippolytus was one of the very greatest of the Roman saints.
Well, in modern times, discoveries that were made about Hippolytus which caused people to wonder just what he really was; what his relation was to the bishop at Rome. And discoveries which led the Romans of today to be in a tremendous quandary; this was a hundred years ago now, a tremendous quandary as to what attitude to take toward Hippolytus; till they worked out an interpretation of his history to satisfy them today. So that the result was that Philip Schaff says of Hippolytus, "This famous person has lived three lives: one in the third century as a real person, a pope," Schaff says, "Then a fictitious one in the middle ages, as a great canonized saint; and a literary one in the l9th century, after the discovery of his works." Of course that's just a figure of speech; but it's an interesting thing, how this man Hippolytus has had these three definite periods of very considerable importance.
In 1551 there was discovered in Rome a statue; it was a bishop's chair with a man sitting in it, having on it the name "Hippolytus"; and on the back of it was a list of his writings, and also a calendar for Easter, to show how to figure Easter for many years to come. Those were the days of Easter calendars.
That was about 1551. I believe it was 1851 that there was discovered a writing, which people thought was by Origen; but someone in it referred to other writings by the same man, and these were writings named on the back of his chair. So this long writing, Against all Heretics, a writing which goes by the name of the Philosophumena, or refutation of all heresies. Well, this work which was discovered in 1851, was, on account of its relationship to the evidence on the statue, was declared by scholars to be a writing by Hippolytus; but when you read this writing, you'll find that it speaks about the first two bishops of Rome during the 2nd century. The first of them was, according to Hippolytus, a weak sort of man, a man who got terribly confused over various heretical views and gave his support to the Monarchians; and the second, according to this work of Hippolytus, was a man who was a crook, a man who had engaged in all kinds of shady business practices, and who had made himself a favorite of the previous pope, the bishop of Rome. And through that influence he had become bishop of Rome in his place. So he called the first bishop Zephyrinus, who was Bishop of Rome from 202-218; he called him a weak sort of a fellow, who got all confused by heretical views; not very dependable as a leader of people's thinking. And the second one, Callistus, Hippolytus tells us, had been the slave of a pious and wealthy Roman; he had induced many of the poorer members of the community to trust their money in a commercial enterprise that his master put in his hands; and then it failed, and Callistus ran away, in order to evade having to make up what he lost; he jumped into the sea, and when the sailors caught up with him to catch him, he was rescued and delivered to his master; he put in jail for a time, and then eventually he was brought before the court. The church was ashamed of him, of course, because Hippolytus declared he wasn't a Christian; and they sentenced him to work in the mines of Sardinia; and he was working there when Commodus set the Christians free from the mines. He managed to be included in the amnesty, and return to Rome; and then he got into high favor with the next bishop, Zephyrinus, who put him in charge of the cemetery; this was one of the leading positions, to be in charge of the cemetery.
To this day, one of the catacombs is called the Catacomb of Callistus. He was in charge of the cemeteries there, and had great influence with Zephyrinus; and when Zephyrinus died, his influence was sufficient to make Callistus the Bishop of Rome in his place. Well, now you can imagine, after the Roman church, through the middle ages, had admired Hippolytus as one of the great saints of the church, and almost then worshipped him; then you find a book which scholars say is by Hippolytus, which says that the two popes who ruled between them for thirty years—you see, much longer than most popes, they ruled for 30 years after 200 AD—were, one of them a weak poor sort of a stick, and the other one practically a crook, well, that put them in a quandary.
So immediately, of course, they said this isn't like Hippolytus at all; this is the work of a heretic. No saint like Hippolytus would ever talk that way about a pope. But the more scholars studied the matter, the more they felt that this was by Hippolytus; and today I believe all scholars admit the work is by Hippolytus.
And a German scholar, Döllinger, whose name you ought to know, because he was a very brilliant defender of the Roman Catholic Church in the last century. Döllinger rendered the Roman Catholics a tremendous service. He worked out an explanation according to which they could admit this was by Hippolytus, and yet say that what he said wasn't true. So Döllinger worked out this explanation, and today all the Roman Catholics accept Döllinger's explanation; and Protestants, many of them, do also. And this may be true, we don't know. We really know very little about the personal life of Hippolytus; but we have various little writings about him, and references to him in ancient writings; and they're very hard to fit together.
For instance, in one of them, he was dragged to death by wild horses in Rome. That's one of the stories which may be true; on the other hand, his name Hippolytus was the Greek for horse; it may have given leave to somebody to imagine his death this way; we don't know. There's no proof that he was killed in that way. But there are a lot of legends about him, but according to Döllinger's theory, Hippolytus was an opponent of these popes; he started a schismatic movement, and established his own church in Rome; a man who was thoroughly orthodox, but for personal reasons disliked these popes.
Now maybe the personal reasons were that these men were crooks; he had no opposition to their doctrines—Zephyrinus had given up his support of the Monarchians, and Callistus didn't go to any great extent for that. Maybe. There was no doctrinal difference, but he did feel they were unworthy to be leaders of the church and many people followed him.
Now we don't know; there's no proof of this at all, but that's Döllinger's theory: that he was an anti-pope, thoroughly orthodox, but for personal reasons said he was the bishop of Rome, and had his own church. And then that, he and the next bishop of Rome after Callistus, were both of them seized by the Roman Emperor; they were sent to work in the mines—persecuted that way for their Christianity—and that there they became reconciled; and Döllinger theorizes that when they were released, they came back to Rome, and Hippolytus asked his people to join with the established church again, and confessed his error; and consequently the Catholic Church forgave him for his sins of establishing a separate church and even made him a saint.
Now that's pure theory; we don't know, because we have no proof as to what the facts are about it. We know he was a great scholar; and we know he was a great opponent of heresy; a man of great Christian understanding; a man greatly respected not only in Rome but throughout the Christian world; a man whose writing against heresy is not as great as the writing of his teacher, Irenaeus, but is a very great writing; and it is one of our great sources of our knowledge of heretical movements of the day. He was a man who greatly disliked the first two bishops of Rome of that century, and tells us these things about them, which he certainly believed were true. And Döllinger can say, "Well he was just moved by personal prejudice, personal feeling." Well that's simply theorizing. But the fact is he did think very, very badly of Zephyrinus and Callistus, and he wrote what he said about them.
[student question] McSorley follows Döllinger's theory. Hippolytus was a great and godly man, but he was misled by personal animosity against these two individuals, who perhaps in all sincerity believed things that were utterly false about them. Yes? [student: Is McSorley reliable?] Yes, I would say that McSorley, on matters of fact is very accurate; but on matters of theory he adopts the views that he feels will cement the Roman Catholic position. But on matters of fact he's very accurate; he will try to explain, but he won't deny. Now of course, some facts, naturally, he would ignore. Anybody has to, because you can't put in all facts in any one book. He puts in the ones he thinks are important. Sometimes we feel it's his prejudice that makes him feel they're important. But on the whole he gives a very good summation of the facts, though his interpretation at times is definitely different from what we believe is true.
Well, then, this is very interesting: that a man who was honored through the centuries as one of their great saints, without ever, through the ages, any question being raised against him, should now be proven, in the last hundred years, to be a man who detested two of the bishops of Rome, and spoke so very, very strongly against them. Schaff was so amused by it that he inclined to give—and I think it's of interest to give at this point—a legend which has come down to us from the middle ages; and this legend states—it was found in medieval writings—states that in 1159 AD, Pope Alexander III went to Paris; and there in Paris, he visited the church of St. Denis; and he was shown the shrine of St. Bartholomew in the church. According this medieval writing, the bones of St. Bartholomew had been taken by Charlemagne, the great king of France, about 800 from Rome to Paris, and put into this shrine. And Pope Alexander III, even though he was infallible, didn't know this. I guess in those days they hadn't yet learned the pope was infallible; that was discovered later. But Pope Alexander III, according to this medieval writing, came to the threshold of one of the chapels, and asked the man who was showing him through, whose relics were they; and the man said those are St. Hippolytus. And the Pope said, "I don't believe it. The bones of Hippolytus were never removed from the Holy City." Schaff continuing his summarizing says: but St. Hippolytus, whose dry bones apparently had as little reverence for the spiritual authority of the successor of Zephyrinus and Callistus as the ancient bishop's tongue and pen had manifested toward those saints themselves, was so very angry that he rattled his bones inside the reliquary with a noise like thunder. To what lengths he might have gone if he had not departed, we dare not conjecture; but the Pope fell on his knees, exclaimed in terror, "I believe, O my Lord Hippolytus, I believe!" And he built an altar of marble there to appease the saint. A very interesting legend of the middle ages; but you might say a legend that looked forward to the discovery of Hippolytus' writings today, and suggested the very interesting developments which happened in connection with him in modern times.
Now before we leave Hippolytus though, I think it will be worth taking just a second to say a word more about this German scholar, Döllinger. He was a very great scholar, a very earnest man, and a very great defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy and the Roman Catholic viewpoint in Germany; he was in constant controversy with the Protestants over matters of church history; and his scholarship was so great he was considered a very, very great scholar by Roman Catholics and by Protestants alike.
But in 1870, when there was held a council in Rome in order to declare the doctrine that the Pope is infallible as a teacher, Döllinger said, "This is casting all history to the winds." He said, "Many of the Popes, though they are the great leaders of the church, have made serious errors of fact and of doctrine in their judgments." And so Döllinger strongly opposed this view—as did various other leaders, including some bishops, in the Roman Catholic church at this time.
But in 1870 the majority voted that the Pope is infallible; and the result was that at the Vatican Council, that was adopted as a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church; so that thereafter all Roman Catholics must accept this dogma or be excommunicated from the Church. There were some bishops who left the church over this, but the majority submitted, accepted the doctrine, and declared they now believed the Pope's word infallible; but Döllinger said, "I must stand on truth." He believed all the Roman Catholic dogma thoroughly; he believed in the leadership of the Pope; but he did not believe the Pope was infallible, because he said it was impossible to deny the facts of history; and as a result Döllinger was excommunicated by the church; and he spent the rest of his life excommunicated by the church, but the church was constantly trying to persuade him to change his mind, to accept the infallibility of the pope, and to come back to the church. But Döllinger said the facts were too strong against it; he could not. Now that, of course, would properly belong to modern church history; it connects up with the facts about the politics and also with the history; if we look clear through the history, we see what the facts were in regard to the claim they make today, that the popes were infallible. So I thought it important to give it to you at this point.
Now
we go on to
D. Clement and
Origen.
We have already discussed Clement of Rome, in the first century. He and
Hippolytus are the only two writers of any importance in the Roman Church in
the first three centuries of ancient history. All our great writers came from
other places; but Clement of Rome, whom we have discussed, we call him "of
Rome" to differentiate him from the man I am speaking of now.
1. Clement of Alexandria. Alexandria was a very important city in the Roman Empire, perhaps the third city in the Roman Empire, a city in Egypt at the mouth of the Nile. It has been important in history ever since Alexander founded it, a very important city inhabited by many Jews and many Greeks. But Alexandria was a great center of Greek culture. And there was a very important Christian church in Alexandria, and many Christians in Alexandria. So Alexandria naturally had an influence in training the young Christians, and in raising up leaders for His church in days to come.
Alexandria is, so far as we know, the first of the churches that established a formal school for Christian leaders. They called this a catechizing school, but actually it was rather like what we would call a seminary today—perhaps a college and seminary combined—it did not have the formal system we have today, but it was a very important school; and this man Clement, who had come from Greece, probably from Athens, born about 150, was the Head of the Catechetical School in Alexandria. He was Head of this school from 189 until 202. Clement was a man who was very, very familiar with Greek culture. He seems to have been a genuine Christian—an orthodox Christian—a man whose understanding of doctrine was on the whole quite sound, but a man who was tremendously interested in showing that the Christian doctrine is intellectually respectable. And so he was bringing to bear his tremendous knowledge of Greek philosophy and Greek thought, bringing it to bear upon Christian doctrine; and in so doing there are many points at which he takes scriptural verses and twists them just a little to make them fit with his interpretation of the wisdom of the Greeks.
He is a man of tremendous knowledge. Now his approach here is rather different from Hippolytus' approach in the Philosophumena. Hippolytus gives the first half of the work to discussing the various philosophical views; and with every one of them, Hippolytus considers two matters: first he shows that the view is fundamentally pagan, and that it is not of the high standard of Christian ethics and Christian morality; and he shows its weaknesses and its error as paganism. But second, in connection with every one of them, he shows that it has an element of truth in it, that it displays a longing after something it doesn't have; and that the answer to its aspirations is Christianity. Thus Hippolytus had a very sane and sound approach for Greek philosophy.
Now Clement was interested in showing the reasonableness of Christianity, and in showing that the normal elements of heathenism found their fulfillment in Christianity; and his works are just filled with the learning of the day; he was a very learned man. But he introduced a method of interpretation which he called the allegorical method of interpretation. And this allegorical method of interpretation is one which has, I think, wrought great havoc in Christian circles through the years. We have to leave that till tomorrow morning.
We were talking about C, Hippolytus, and then we began D, Clement and Origen. Under that 1, Clement of Alexandria.
Before we go on further with Clement of Alexander, I want to briefly speak about three questions that I have here.
Here is one: "If the Papacy is actually a continuance of the Pharisee group, stressing ritual and ceremony, why weren't the early Popes all Jews in nationality?" Now, when did I ever state it was a continuance of the Pharisee group? I don't remember ever making such a statement. I am glad the question was raised, because it is very important that we have thoroughly in mind what is meant by the Papacy. The word "Pope" originally just is "father". Paul spoke of Timothy as his son in the faith. So all Christian leaders were called Father, or papa. Now the pope of Rome was the head of the church in the most important city in the empire; and naturally considerable importance attached to the position. In the course of the middle ages, the church fell into all kinds of superstition; and much of this superstition had been continued because of the bishop of Rome, now being the only one called Pope, giving his support to this. But I doubt very much if there was any more ritual and ceremony in the Church of Rome in the first few centuries than anywhere else in the empire—perhaps less than in some other places. So I don't think that this is quite the true situation: that the Papacy in early days, in ritual and ceremony, was any more so than any other part of the empire. That is using the papacy in the sense of carrying back what we have today to that time.
I doubt if the Roman church in the early days had much ritual and ceremony at all. They were a Greek-speaking church in Rome; they were like foreigners, strangers, gathered to hear the Word of God; and probably it was a very simple sort of a service that the church had at that time. But that naturally, from all over the empire, they looked to the capital as a place of great influence; and of course in addition, Paul at least had been there; and according to a very early tradition, Peter too. There were men there who had known the early apostles; so naturally the church had tremendous influence; but that it was characterized by ritual and ceremony in the early days, there is no evidence for it. That is something that is very characteristic now, but I doubt if it was then.
But on the other hand, I don't think the Pharisees either were particularly characterized by ritual and ceremony. It was the Sadducees who carried out ritual and ceremony. The Pharisees were the ones who studied the law; but in the law, whenever they found a statement they took it extremely literally; and they put tremendous stress on precise little details, while sometimes missing the big main force of them; and that was the main difficulty with them. The ritual and ceremony was largely in the hands of the Sadducees.
Now the second question here is: "Can Tertullian rightly be called the Father of the Reformation in view of the stand he took to expose the evil?" Well the Reformation wasn't exposure of evils which had come in at that time. Tertullian was one of many who exposed evil that came in at various earlier times. And you might say the Reformation has a thousand fathers, because everybody was in a sense a father of it who ever exposed any evils. But Tertullian, I don't think, had any more direct relation with it than a thousand others who exposed evils at one time or another.
Then here are a number of questions about Montanists. "What were the circumstances that led the Montanist movement to extend all the way to North Africa from Asia Minor?"
Well, the Montanists were a group of comparatively uneducated people, led by two or three very enthusiastic people in Asia Minor who thought they were receiving visions and dreams and new ideas. And others were very suspicious of this, because the Montanists were receiving new ideas which seemed to be contrary to the Word of God. But the Montanists—in the light of what we can look back now—these people seem not to have been receiving ideas that were contrary to the scripture. The evidence seems to be that they were very enthusiastic, little educated people, who were stressing the orthodox teachings of the scripture and who did not, as so many groups like that have, fall into serious error at various points.
But many other people interpreted some of their statements—for instance, you will read in most church history books that the originator of the Montanists, Montanus, said he was the Holy Spirit, but that of course would be rank heresy. But present-day scholars largely say that what Montanus said, was that the Holy Spirit was speaking through him, that he was representing the Holy Spirit, not that he was the Holy Spirit. Well, it's very easy to have such a misunderstanding. The Montanists were an enthusiastic movement which was in the main very true to the scripture, in its main teaching. But Montanism—and if it had been heretical at any point, I am sure Irenaeus who wrote his great book against all heretics, would have been very much against it—but Irenaeus made a trip to Rome to urge the Bishop of Rome to be tolerant towards them, not to break off Christian relations with them. The Montanists probably would have died out, within a brief time, because of their lack of solid leadership of educated people, if it were not for the fact that Tertullian joined them. And Tertullian's solid and broad understanding caused, doubtless, that the movement should continue for a couple of centuries longer, till his following finally merged back into the catholic church shortly after 400 A.D. But that is the situation about the Montanists.
Now a second question here: "Were there any Montanists in Rome at the time of Irenaeus?" Yes, there definitely were. And third: "What doctrines of the Montanists caused the early church to proclaim it to be heretical?" My guess would be that there was a misunderstanding somewhere there—it's pretty hard to prove one, that far back, because we have no Montanist literature. Anything that was written from those days most certainly has disappeared, except what people thought was worth copying and re-copying. And we know about them mostly from the statements of their opponents. But examining those statements carefully, we feel—it is felt by most scholars today—that actually there was no heretical teaching which the Montanists were pushing. But it was a misunderstanding of their doctrine which led people to think it was heretical. So much then for these three questions.
Now
to come back again to our main outline. 1, Clement of Alexandria. Under that:
a. The Catechetical School. I mentioned briefly yesterday, how Alexandria had its school at which there was a leader who directed the teaching; and the church of Alexandria which was a large church had its bishop who had very considerable authority over it; and then a group of presbyters who were in charge of various churches under him, or were the counselors with whom he worked; and they appointed a man to be head of the school of Alexandria; and then one of his best students was appointed to succeed him. This was a man named Clement, who became the leader of the school in 180 and was head of it until 202. He did not die in 202; he fled in the persecution. He lived about 20 years more. But his activity was mostly in these years from 180 to 202.
He
was a man of Greek background, born in Athens, a man of very great learning.
And Clement faced the paganism and the philosophic movement; and he was anxious
to show the pagans that the truth they were seeking was in Christianity; that
Christianity was the fulfillment of their learning. His emphasis thus was not
so much their turning out of the evil of paganism as in showing the pagans that
the answer to their needs was in Christianity. He was particularly interested
in the philosophic aspects of paganism, trying to show how their answer was in
Christianity. Now
b. His writings. There were three principal writings of Clement of Alexandria. The 3 principal writings were:
(1) Exhortation to the Greeks, which was his main writing; a book trying to show the Greeks how the answer to the need found in their philosophies was to be found in Christianity; and there is tremendous learning, as he deals with so many of their various writings and shows the incompleteness of them, the need of something further.
(2) Then he wrote a book he called The Educator in which he examines Christian morality, and exhorts to a holy walk, with constant reference to heathen practices which he opposes. And then
(3)
The Miscellanies, is an attempt to lead
people into a deeper knowledge.
c. The Allegorical Method. It is too bad that a good man like Clement, who was seeking to advance Christianity, should have one thing for which he is known more than anything else. But that one thing is a tendency into which he fell, which has had very harmful consequences in the Christian church. This we call the allegorical method.
The allegorical method of interpreting scripture is not something which began with Christians. It began with the attitude of the pagans in dealing with pagan mythology. The Greek philosophers, when they were teaching the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey—the Greek legends which were the educational manuals for boys, and which were general standards for philosophy and religion in Greece—they would take the narrative and try to show that the events described there didn't matter; they weren't so important, but they were a peg for the attachment of great truth.
For instance, they would tell how the beginning of the war against Troy came when Paris, Prince of Troy, made his choice between the three goddesses; he had the apple of discord; each wanted to have the apple, and it was to go to the most beautiful; and so he had to make his choice; and each of them made him an offer; and it was the goddess of love whose offer he accepted; the most beautiful woman in the world to be his wife, and gave her the apple. The result was that he went and stole Helen of Greece; and the Greeks came and fought ten years to get her back, and destroyed Troy.
Well now the story of Paris—according to this allegorical interpretation—was the story of the soul; in its sensuous life, seeing only beauty and selecting it, instead of wisdom, knowledge and the other things that are offered; and showing the error in human life with the terrible effect it has in the world.
And the story of the Odyssey, Homer's second great poem, shows Ulysses on his way back from Troy, ten years wandering in the Mediterranean before he finally gets back to Greece. They said this is a picture of man carried here and there on the sea of life, drawn by his passion, and tempted by the siren voice of pleasure; and they were thus taking these Greek myths and trying to interpret them to make them simply the instruments to present truth.
There was a Jewish teacher in Alexandria, called Philo, just after the time of Christ, who did the same thing in relation to the OT; Philo allegorized the OT; and he would take everything as a symbol of something else; and that way he would believe everything in the OT, but he would interpret it all as conveying great truths instead of individual matters of history.
Well, now of course it is true that the great truths—the great principles—are what matter, rather than the little details and activities. But the great danger of this is that we read into the scripture our own particular ideas, instead of going to it to see exactly what's there; and getting out of it what is there. And it can very easily be carried to tremendous lengths, which can lead anybody to think it just means anything at all; anybody can get anything out of it that they want. There is a tremendous danger in that way.
During the middle ages, the allegorical method was applied a great deal to the Bible. For instance you would read in one of the Psalms, "O daughter of Babylon, happy is he that shall take thy little ones and cast them against the stones." Well this, of course, is showing the terrible things for the cities and countries that follow the wicked practices of Babylon; what is going to happen. It is not encouraging brutality on the part of people; but simply showing God's judgment for its wickedness against Babylon; and what's going to happen. So, it's quite a rhetorical language.
But in the middle ages that was interpreted—it says, Daughter of Babylon, happy is he that takes thy little ones and casts them against the stones—well, they looked in the NT and find the stone is Christ. He is the stone the builders rejected; and therefore if Christ is the stone, why this means happy are those who take the descendants of the Babylonians and bring them in contact with Christ, and give them the gospel. Well, you see, that is interpreting the thing without relationship to the context whatever; and you soon get to where anything at all can mean anything.
A man told me, not long ago, of going into a church where there was a fine orthodox preacher—a very godly man—who was giving a message; and in this message he taught the story of the Good Samaritan. And he said that the high priest is condemned in this story—he passed the man by—and the Levite is condemned—he passed the man by. Now what was wrong with the high priest or the Levite? Well, they were going down into Jericho; they were going downhill, away from the truth; they weren't going to Jerusalem; they were going down to Jericho. So naturally they're condemned. Well, then what about the Good Samaritan? Well, he said, he wasn't going down; he was going up. He was on his way up to Jerusalem, so he was saved. And he brought a beautiful message about the importance of our going up to Jerusalem instead of down to Jericho; but it's not in the story at all. It's reading into it something that isn't there. And when we read Christian teaching into stories or statements which are not there, you can't blame somebody else for reading anti-Christian or wrong interpretations into them.
We want to go to Scripture and see just what it says, and stand upon what is there; not read into it something that isn't there, no matter how good it is. On the other hand, we must interpret scripture in the light of other scripture. And so very often the meaning of something is not clear by itself; you get it from elsewhere; and others may not see how you get it from elsewhere; and therefore they may think you're following this allegorical method. It's not just a simple matter: here's the Bible, we just take it literally. We don't mean, take it literally; we take it just as it stands. And when it says the trees of the field together will clap their hands, it does not mean trees have hands and clap them; it means that all nature rejoices; and it's perfectly obvious what it means, but we're not taking it literally, but we're taking it as it stands.
And you interpret scripture in the light of scripture; you have to interpret, but you should go slowly and carefully; have your evidence that you're really interpreting and not reading into it. And this allegorical method then, very soon, led people to reading in of all sorts of things that aren't there; so it is something we must be very careful about.
Well, Clement in Alexandria got this allegorical method from the pagans, and from Philo the Jew. He took it from them, but used it a great deal in his interpretations of scripture; and Origen his successor went even further in using this allegorical method; so the Alexandrian school has been known for this allegorical method. But the leaders of the allegorical school—of the Alexandrian school—kept true to the great fundamentals of the faith; they put their major stress on advancing that; so that it was a school which did much for the furtherance of the gospel, which deserves praise on our part, for the contribution it made for the advance of Christianity; but it had certain unfortunate things about it, of which one of them is the stress it gave to this allegorical method.
And quite naturally, along with that, it allegorized the statements about the return of Christ. It put the big stress on the coming of Christ as our Savior, and that is where we should put our stress; because that is what affects us and our salvation, what he has already done; it is through that we are saved; that is the gospel; that is what we need to know. But the scripture also teaches he is going to come back, to fulfill the hope that many thought he was going to fulfill when he first came; to put an end to wickedness on this earth; to cleanse this earth; and to set up his kingdom of righteousness and joy upon this earth. And that had been believed by just about all the leaders of the Christian church up to this time. Papias very strongly presents it; Irenaeus very strongly; the Montanists, of course, put great emphasis on the expectation of the return of Christ. Hippolytus very clearly and strongly presents his expectation of Christ coming back to set up his kingdom.
Now the Alexandrian school did not deny the physical return of Christ; but the things connected with it they largely allegorize; and they oppose the belief in the thousand-year reign of Christ, which they call chiliasm—chilias being the Greek word for a thousand—the people who believe in the millennium—millennium being the Latin word and chiliasm the Greek word.
So
the Alexandrian school was largely responsible for the dying down of the
expectation of the millennial reign of Christ which had been universal during
the first century and during most of the second century. Then,
d. Clement's reference to the Didache. Now the Didache was a work to which we find a reference in Clement's writings. Until a few years ago we knew nothing about it whatever. But we have in Clement's writings this reference to the Didache, which is the Latin word for teaching, short for the Teaching of the 12 apostles. He referred to the book which was so designated; and references to this book in Eusebius, the church historian, and other writers subsequently, showed us that this book, between the time of Clement and 600 AD, was quite a bit read in the Christian church. After 600, we have absolutely no reference to it whatever. The book was then completely unknown till modern times, until the last third of the last century. Then there was discovered in Constantinople a manuscript which was this writing to which Clement refers, the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.
Now
this book has nothing to do with the apostles. It is a book which got that
title some way; the man who wrote it evidently believed that he was giving what
the apostles had actually held, to throw much light on recent church history.
If we're going to study in great detail the practices of the church of the 2nd
century, it is a book which deserves much consideration; but for general church
history it is important to be aware of its existence; but that's about all we
need in general church history. It was discovered in the last third of the 19th
century, somewhere between 1870 and 1900—I can't tell you the exact date—but it
was discovered in Constantinople; and immediately it was translated and
published; theories have been made that part of it is very early, and part
later and combined, and then other parts put in later; and whether there's
anything to these theories, we cannot tell; because we have only one
manuscript, and we have only internal evidence on which to base anything. And
we have no reference to it anywhere before Clement of Alexandria.
2. Origen. Origen's life is, in some ways, one of the most interesting of the lives of any of the ancient church fathers. The Latin Church will not call him a father. Many of these writers they call saints. Clement they observed as a saint until along in the late middle ages, when they stopped calling him saint; but Origen they do not; but from our viewpoint we certainly would call him a father, because he was a Christian writer; in fact, he was the most voluminous of all Christian writers of the early centuries.
Origen was the successor of Clement as the head of the Catechetical School in Alexandria. Origen was an Egyptian living in Alexandria there—I mention that because, though Clement was in Alexandria, he was an Athenian, who had come from Greece. Clement had come from a pagan family, had a fine pagan education, and had then been converted. Origen was raised in a Christian family. His father Leonidas was probably a teacher of rhetoric. His father gave him a good education, particularly in Christian things; he also studied under Clement; while yet a boy he knew whole sections of the Bible by memory; and often he had all sorts of difficult philosophical questions and problems about the things of scripture even as a boy; and his father used to reprove him for being curious about some of these things that nobody knows; but then when he went to sleep, his father thanked God for such a son with such an intellect as he had, and the desire to understand the Holy things of the Word.
In 202 Septimius Severus began his great persecution; and Leonidas was taken to prison; and the young boy wrote his father a letter beseeching him not to deny Christ for the sake of the family, but to stand true to the Lord, which Leonidas doubtless would have done anyway; and Leonidas was killed and his property confiscated. Origen was then in his middle teens; and he was so disturbed at his father's death, that he declared he was going to go and announce himself to the court as a Christian; and if his father was killed for His sake, he certainly should be too. His mother hid his clothes in order to make it impossible for him to go out, and urged him not to do this. His father's property being confiscated, his mother was left a widow with seven children, of whom the oldest was Origen, only about 17 years of age at that time.
Origen then set to work; the persecution did not last a very long time; Origen set to work giving instruction in Greek language and literature and copying manuscripts. And in 203, though he was only 18 years of age—Clement having fled from the persecution, and not being there any more—Origin was made head of the Catechetical School in Alexandria. He desired to fill his office as best he could, so he attended the lectures of the various heathen philosophers, and all the various heretical teachers in the area; he tried to learn all he could about their teachings; and tried to advance his understanding of the Word of God; and soon he had a great number of students who were very, very devoted to his classes, and to his teachings.
Origen was a brilliant man, with a very great knowledge of literature, and of the knowledge of the time in just about every field. There was a wealthy man who became tremendously interested in him; he furnished him a costly library; provided seven stenographers for him and a number of copyists; to take down his lectures, and to make copies of them; his fame spread far and wide, far away from Egypt; the mother of the emperor Alexander Severus had him come to Antioch, where she was, in order to teach her the Gospel of Christianity; and he became very widely known. Though he had much means for borrowing books and for having his lectures copied and so on, he lived a very simple life. He rarely touched meat; never drank wine; he literally followed the Savior's injunction to have but one coat, and to take no thought for the morrow. In fact, he read the verse that said some are born eunuchs and some are made eunuchs and some make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake; and he was so anxious to devote himself to his studies and the advancement of the gospel, with nothing in the world to interfere, that he emasculated himself, in order that there would be no impulses within him to take his attention from the advancement of Christian studies; and also because in his work he had to have much contact with inquiring young women; and he wanted there to be not the slightest possibility of any scandal or anything being said which would be injurious to the church.
Now nobody else approved of his doing this at that time; and it seems in later life there is some evidence that he himself regretted what he had done. But that was taking a statement in the scripture extremely literally, as you see, and carrying it out specifically in that extremely literal way. And it shows how very different he was in his attitude from that of so many; when they have all the admirers and all the support that he had, because of his brilliant lectures, so many indulged in luxury and personal showing off, and they become conceited with it; he himself always slept on a bare floor; spent the greater amount of the night in prayer and study; and was absolutely devoted to his studies and to his teaching.
In 228 he was visiting in Caesarea; and the Bishop of Caesarea and the Bishop of Jerusalem, who were great admirers of his, invited him to teach publicly in their churches; to expound scripture to their people; and they ordained him a presbyter. This made the Bishop of Alexandria very angry. He said that a person who was emasculated could not possibly be an officer in the church; and that this was a wicked act on the part of these bishops to ordain Origen as presbyter; and he refused to allow Origen to come back to Alexandria or to continue in the school there. And he held two councils in Alexandria against Origen. He accused him of false doctrine, false mutilation, violation of the church laws, and declared that he should be deposed from his office and excommunicated.
But the church as a whole did not take this attitude—though the Bishop of Alexandria did—and Origin himself said of these people who were persecuting him: he said you must pity them rather than hate them. Pray for them rather than curse them, for we are made for blessing and not for cursing. But the Bishop of Caesarea then opened a new school in Caesarea. There Origen taught; and the fame of this school soon outshone that of Alexandria. It was while he was there that he had correspondence even with various emperors, presenting to them the Word of God; and in 244 he went to Arabia, to the council to consider the heresies of Bishop Beryllus, whom we mentioned yesterday; and you remember after the Council condemned Beryllus, that Beryllus insisted they were wrong, Origen talked with Beryllus, and convinced him of his errors; and Beryllus publicly retracted his errors and thanked Origen for what he had done.
Now we had discussed the Roman emperors up to 249. Later we'll be looking at the emperors during the succeeding period. We noticed that after Septimius Severus, there was very little persecution—just a brief period under Maximinus—but otherwise very little persecution between the early years of the third century and the middle of the century. But in 252 a very severe persecution broke out, which we'll look at later. Now we want to look at this in relation to Origen.
But first, when this persecution broke out, he was cast into prison, cruelly tortured, and condemned to the stake. But before he was executed the emperor died, and the persecution came to an end; and so he was released; but he had been cruelly tortured, and within a few months he died at the age of 59; and most people consider his death to be the result of the torture that he had gone through. So we have Origen as a boy wanting to go and denounce himself as a Christian in the persecution, but being held back from it. Then we have his long life of active study and teaching; and then we have him at the end of his life being arrested by the persecutors and cruelly tortured, and would have been killed if it had not been for the emperor's death.
Now
they—in those days—called a man a martyr who died at the stake. A man who stood
up nobly and admitted his Christianity and risked death for it, but wasn't
killed, they called a confessor. So Origen would be a confessor, not having
actually been killed. But if his death later was a certain result of the
torture, then he certainly deserves to be called a martyr. Now that very
briefly is the summary of Origen's life.
3. Origen's Writings. And Origen, of course, as a fairly young man had this wealthy man who gave him seven stenographers to take down his lectures, and then many copyists; so he had unique opportunities for writing, and for getting his material out. But that wouldn't have been enough if the material hadn't been good enough that people wanted to have it. The fact is that St. Jerome, who lived 150 years later, said that Origen wrote more than other men would be able to read in a lifetime. And a cousin of his said that his writings actually amounted to 6,000 different writings, and if you include all his church tracts, commentaries and letters, much more. Some of these works were very, very long.
And he was not simply a man who gave general thin discourses on matters. He did a great deal of very close and careful study. One of his great works, for instance, was the so-called Hexapla, or 6-fold Bible. This was a copy which he made of the Old Testament in 6 columns. In the first column, he copied it all out in Hebrew. In the second, he put the Hebrew into Greek letters—a transliteration into Greek letters. Then he had three translations into Greek, that were in his day distributed quite a bit, by men called Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus. We will discuss these men in OT Introduction, so I won't go into details here; but I mention that in his third, fourth and sixth columns, he had these Greek translations. In the 5th column, between these, he had the translation which he called the translation of the Seventy; we call it the Septuagint, the word 70 in Greek form.
Now the Septuagint was the common translation in the Greek of the Old Testament. And Origen copied the Septuagint here; but when he found something in the Septuagint that wasn't in the Hebrew, he put a little mark after it to indicate "this is not in the Hebrew"; and when he found something in the Hebrew that wasn't in the Septuagint, he would put it in but with a little mark of a different kind to indicate "this is in the Hebrew but not in the Septuagint." So you see, to do the whole Bible this way would be a lifetime work for most people, but that is only one of his 6,000 writings. However, of course, one that would equal perhaps 100 or more books.
They say he put 28 years of unwearied labor on making his Hexapla. This Hexapla, if we only had it today, would be of tremendous value in studying the OT. Unfortunately the copy of it which was in Caesarea was destroyed when the Mohammedans conquered Caesarea about 4 centuries later. But before that time, it was there in the library and was studied by many scholars. Fortunately the fifth column—which had these diacritical marks in it—was translated into other languages with the marks included. And in modem times, quite a few fragments of it have been found—translations of the 5th column, with the diacritical marks included—and that is very interesting to us for Old Testament critical study.
Now, he wrote commentaries on almost all the books of the Old and New Testaments; and in these commentaries, he gives much defense of the great doctrines of the faith. He gives exposition and discussion of difficult passages and problems; and he also gives a tremendous amount of allegorical interpretation of passages, but much of this is very extreme and of very little value. But with the allegorical he has much of very sound interpretation, and, on the great fundamentals of the faith, he stood true and firm; and he convinced many men like Beryllus, who were getting off on heretical tangents with their errors; and he brought them back to a true understanding of the scripture.
There was a heathen named Celsus who had written an attack on Christianity. We don't know who Celsus was, or when he wrote it, but he evidently was a man of considerable learning and ability as a writer; and this had been distributed for perhaps half or two-thirds of a century; and many were reading it, and using its arguments against Christianity. Origen wrote 8 books of refutation of Celsus' attack on Christianity; he went into Celsus' very detailed attacks, his denials of its truth, answering his attacks upon it. His argument against Celsus was very famous, very important; his Hexapla is, as you see; and of course his commentaries are of tremendous importance to NT textual criticism, because you have perhaps two-thirds of the New Testament actually quoted in the commentaries in connection with his discussion of it; and it is earlier than many of our manuscripts of the NT, and therefore of tremendous interest in consideration of the text of the NT.
He also wrote writings on various documents, and discussions on all the great doctrines; he took a strong stand in defense of these; though, unfortunately, on some of the minor doctrines he adopted positions which are contrary to those which most Christians believe to be taught in the scriptures. For instance, we believe that it is clearly taught in the scripture that the wicked are to suffer eternally for their sins. Now Origen felt that there was reason to hope that in the mercy of God he would eventually lead all the lost to a knowledge of Christ in salvation, possibly even Satan himself. And there were various points like these, which are not the main points of the faith, on which he stood very strongly and taught very clearly, on which he adopted theories which are not what we believe to be the teaching of the scriptures. And there were many matters in which he tried to get an answer, where the evidence was insufficient; and he worked up a theory which is doubtless wrong.
A great English scholar of the last century said that Origen's principal error was in trying to know the unknown; and it is his theories on some of these points which led quite a number of people to become very hostile to him. And of course, he did great harm with his denial of the pre-millennial return of Christ; he followed in the footsteps of Clement and helped to push into the background that doctrine which had meant so much for the purity of the church; and for its loyalty to the faith; and for this blessed hope that the Lord had given.
Origen is an extremely interesting man and extremely important for us, one who did a great deal of good, but one who also did a certain amount of harm.
Well, I got so interested in Origen that I didn't notice the clock. I have to leave almost immediately to go downtown, so if any of you have questions to ask, please hold them till a week from Monday. If they can't be held that long, maybe you could see me tomorrow; but I have to be running along now.
Under
D, Clement & Origin, we discussed 2, Origen's Life, and 3, Origen's
Writings. Next
4. Origen's Views. I think actually you can't separate his views from the writings very well, and I had discussed most of his views under the heading of writings. His writings were the most extensive of perhaps any writer in ancient times; he was an extremely voluminous writer, and a very careful student; and a very, very valuable contribution he made to the development of the Christian church. His careful study of text; his desire to know exactly what was there; 28 years of study of the Old Testament to get the exact correct text; it was a monumental contribution; and of course in his life, we noticed his martyrdom; his suffering for the faith; his ascetic life; his constant labor to spread the knowledge of the Bible. He was a very great and good man.
His answer to Celsus would be almost a lifetime work to many people. this learned pagan Celsus, a brilliant atheist, who made a great attack on Christianity, worked out so carefully, and Origen refuted him point by point.
We notice, however, that he had certain unfortunate things in his teachings. On all the great points of Christian doctrine he was sound. I don't think there's any question of that. But where the Scripture isn't clear, he let his imagination run. And he tried to solve problems for which we do not have sufficient evidence in scripture. And consequently, on some points on which the Christian world is pretty well agreed the scripture is clear, but it isn't obvious—it takes a certain amount of investigation on some of these points—he came up with answers which we would consider as definitely contrary to Christian teaching. And he made guesses on many points which scripture does not cover. Some of these things, others took up and followed, and there was harm done by it; and of course he did great harm by his abandonment of the pre-millennial position which had been almost universal in the church up to a comparatively short time before. All of the early church fathers strongly held the expectation of Christ's return to set up his kingdom upon this earth; and Origen gave that up and opposed it; and that of course did harm to the spiritual life, fervor and devotion of the church.
Under
these points and others I've mentioned, we've covered under Origen's Views;
we'll go on now to
E. Roman Emperors from 249 to 300. We have discussed the Roman Emperors up to 249, because the important things we've been talking about so far have been up to that period. I didn't want to confuse you by going further in the Roman Empire at that time.
Now we're going to start the second half of the century, and so we are taking the Roman Emperors from 249 to 300. You remember that Heliogobalus was one of the emperors in the earlier period; he began to reign in 218. Between him and 283, there were 17 different emperors in that period of 65 years—17 emperors, an average of less than 4 years to an emperor. And possibly every one of these 17 died a violent death; some of them died in battle, but most of them were assassinated. The Roman Empire in its general organization was quite solid, and there was a general situation of peace within the empire; but there was constantly the danger of upheaval and chaos through the many changes in the headship of the Empire. And, of course, as we noticed the emperors often had particular attitudes which affected the whole of the Roman Empire very definitely. We've noticed how previous to 249, after the great persecution of Septimius Severus there was comparatively little persecution; between 218 and 249 there was a 30-year period with hardly any persecution at all—just a brief period when Maximinus, who was a rather savage ruler—had a rather severe persecution which was extremely brief. But there was a 30-year period of hardly any persecution at all.
During
this period there had been these able writers like Origen, Hippolytus, and of
course Tertullian just shortly before; his writings were widely read; and the
church was growing, and knowledge of Christianity was spreading. But now we
come to a man who was perhaps a more able ruler than anyone since Septimius
Severus up to this time. His name is
1. Decius (249-251). Decius was an able man, a ruler who wanted to revive the ancient Roman discipline, and he wanted to establish the empire once more on a very solid foundation; it is possible that he might have done so, had he not been killed in battle against the Goths on the borders of the empire in 251. He reigned just over two years. But during those two years he is constantly trying to stabilize conditions in the Empire, to get it established on a more firm foundation. He was an able ruler, and one we must say, from the viewpoint of political history of the Empire, had good ideas in general and was able in carrying them out.
But it was noticed very often during these years, that it was good rulers who felt that Christianity was a menace and persecuted them; and evil rulers, often, were indifferent to Christianity, or even favored it to some extent. Well, Decius here felt that one of the reasons for increasing anarchy and for demoralization coming into the Empire, was that people were losing their religion. There was no longer the thought of trust in the old Roman gods that there used to be. The temple services were not attended as they had formerly been. He felt that in order to have stability in the army, stability in the government, and stability in the nation, you must have a strong religious background; and as it was the pagan religion that had made Rome great, therefore, it should be established again in strength.
And so Decius very carefully looked about to find what was causing the falling away of belief in the pagan gods; and he came to the conclusion that one cause was this movement known as the Christian church. And he felt that a stop must be made to this; that the Christian church should be rooted out. You notice his attitude is very, very different from that of any Roman emperor before this time.
There is no Roman emperor before this time who had deliberately, carefully planned how to destroy Christianity out of the empire. Nero and Domitian struck out at it—in excuse and for protection for themselves—Trajan understood it was an evil thing, but he wanted his people protected against false accusations. He did not order any of his men to ever go looking for Christians. But if a man was accused of Christianity, and he could not prove that he was not a Christian, naturally he had to be punished; but a false accuser was in great danger with Trajan's very, very careful rule made about this matter which he did not understand. Marcus Aurelius had gone to quite a length to oppose Christianity, but he did not have a carefully thought-out system like Decius. Decius said, "What we want to do is to lead the rank and file of Christian people who have adopted this superstition to give it up; we don't want to destroy them; we want to bring them back to the pagan system." And he said, "The leaders we doubtless had better get rid of, because they will be pretty hard to stop."
And so he gave orders suddenly that the Christians should be gathered together, everybody who there was any reason to think might be a Christian. And when they were gathered together—with severe penalties if they didn't come—once they got together, then they were to be commanded to sacrifice to the gods. And if they sacrificed to the gods, they could go and nobody would bother them at all. If they refused to come but fled away, they were to have their goods confiscated and be forbidden to return to their home under pain of death. If they refused to sacrifice, then they were to be examined by the magistrate, given punishment: imprisonment, whatever was necessary to persuade them to alter their resolution and sacrifice and become good loyal Roman citizens.
Well, this was as you see, a plan not to strike here and there, where there was general mass hatred, or anything like that; but to go through the empire systematically to force people to give up Christianity; to bring them away from it in some way. It was seen that a great many of the magistrates did not see the reason for what Decius did; and consequently these magistrates often were very, very lax. They would say. "Well now, you don't want to sacrifice? Now you just slip me ten dollars under the table, and I'll give you a slip saying you have sacrificed; and you won't have to sacrifice; you won't have to do anything against your conscience; but neither will you be in any danger because you will have this certificate that says you have sacrificed." So he gave them a simple paper which they called a libellus; and the man who had one of these they called a libellaticus, a man who had a libel. I don't know whether the fact that libel today, which has a bad sense, has developed from that use of it then; there was nothing bad in the sense then; it simply meant anybody who had a certificate that he had sacrificed.
But when you would see a man very strong in the church, and you would say, "Well now, how is that man able to get along and not be suffering for his Christianity?" "Oh, he has got a certificate from the magistrate; nobody can bother him." "Well what does the certificate say?" "Well it says he sacrificed." "Did he sacrifice?" "Oh, no, no; he didn't sacrifice, but the magistrate gave him that." Well you say, "Did he buy it from the magistrate?" "Oh no, no, this is a good magistrate and he wanted to help him out, he gave it." You couldn't prove whether he had bribed the magistrate or not. In some cases they doubtless had; in other cases they hadn't. But they had the certificate and therefore they couldn't be bothered. This certificate was called a libellus. One who had a libellus was a man who possessed one of these certificates.
Well, Decius' persecution at first succeeded beyond his wildest hopes. Thousands of people, who had been faithful church goers, and who had seemed to be the best of Christians, when faced with this danger of torture, imprisonment, could take a few grains of incense and burn them before the statue of a god or something; and some of them would say, "Well it's just political; it's just a sign of patriotism to the emperor; and of course here it doesn't affect our Christianity at all; we'll make this sacrifice." And thousands of them did it; but the others who didn't, they didn't look in a very light way upon it; they felt that these people had apostatized; they had given up their faith in Christ by doing this sacrifice.
Then of course there were many others who didn't sacrifice, but who got these libelli which stated that they had; and of course if they had one of those, then they were safe; you couldn't make him sacrifice over again; he has already proven he is a good pagan by the certificate.
[student: Didn't Japanese Christians face a similar persecution? Do we have a similar question regarding reverence for the flag?] Well, nobody says that the American flag is a god, or that it represents a god, or that it is a religious act. It is recognized by all as an act of patriotism; but the Shinto religion declares that the shrine at which they bow is the abiding place of the spirits of the ancestors, of the Japanese gods who bring success; and they are being asked to give success to the nation. It is in the Shinto religion explicitly a religious act, and it is bowing to a heathen deity.
Now somebody may try to tell himself that this is just a patriotic act; but that is not the way the Shinto people themselves consider it. Well, it would be just as easy for these people to say, when they worshipped the emperor's statue, they were just doing a patriotic act; but the rest of the church did not understand that. And this was the first great effect of Decius' persecution—to lead a great many to apostasy—and others to become hypocrites by carrying around these libelli and trying to be still good faithful church members; but carrying this certificate that they were pagans; that they had sacrificed. That was the first effect.
The bishops, the leaders of the church, many of them fled; others were forced to go into exile; and in exile they wrote letters to their churches, directing things; so that they helped the church still; and then they proved to be good missionaries where they were in exile, and they won others there too. So Decius wasn't very well satisfied the way that worked out. Some of them, then, were killed. The bishop of Rome, for instance, died in prison. Quite a few of the leading bishops died under torture or in prison, in connection with Decius' persecution.
Soon, however, there was, you might say, the second wave of the effect of the persecution. The first was the great amount of apostasy. The second was the people who were ready to stand up bravely and testify to Christ; and among them there were many who had been living dissolute lives. There were many who had not been faithful Christians in their lives at all; but they seemed to think that now, by bravely standing torture, they would make up for all their deficiencies of life; and people were highly honored and confessed their faith, regardless of torture and persecution; and the confessors, as they called them, began to be looked up to in the church, having tremendous honor being paid to them, which of course many of them deserved. Though some of them were people who were simply trying to atone by suffering for their Christian lives, most of them were doubtless good people who were truly and loyally standing for the Lord.
These confessors came to be very highly exalted in the Christian church; and they had a tremendous standing there; and many of them were very ignorant people who began now to exert a tremendous influence in the church, through the honor they had as being confessors; all the more so, because Decius died very soon in this battle; and when the persecution stopped, you had this great number of confessors in the Christian church that everybody looked up to and idolized; and they exerted tremendous influence.
So you had the problem: what to do about the latter? How much standing should a confessor have in the church? Now if a person had died as a martyr, you could honor them, you could praise them, you could say all kinds of wonderful things about them; and there was no backfiring from it; they deserved all this; it was fine. But if they were confessors, and would have been killed except that the persecution ended before they were; in some way they were let loose; now they were in the church; and whatever they said, most of the people were just ready to accept.
For instance, here would be somebody who, you had pretty good proof, he had paid to get a certificate, or that he had sacrificed in order to not risk having any personal danger to himself. He paid for his peace; he committed two crimes: he was a hypocrite, he carried a paper saying he had made pagan sacrifice when he hadn't, and he bribed the magistrate to get it.
What are you going to do with such a man, now the persecution was over? Is he going to continue to be one of the leaders in your church? Or is he going to have to give some true sign of real repentance before you let him do so? Well, he's got a good friend who is a confessor, who nobly bore the danger of death for his devotion. This confessor gives him a statement: "I do confess my faith and risked death for it. I want that this other fellow shall be restored to his full position in the church, and not be in any way looked down upon because of what he did." Well there was a real problem there.
So
they had some tough problems here in the beginning of this period. We will look
more at them later, but at present we are simply looking at the Roman emperors;
I'm not going to take time to tell about Decius' successor, who carried on the
persecution to some extent, but it didn't last long. We'll call
2. Valerian (253-260). And Valerian when he became Emperor in 253, he reigned from 253 to 260; he stopped the persecution. The church again had peace; the people in the prisons were released; and they understood that they had nothing more to worry about now. But Valerian was addicted to the practice of black magic; and he was inquiring into the secrets of the future; perhaps the black magicians influenced him against the Christians; we don't know. At any rate, from 253 to 257 the church had peace.
But in 257, he issued a persecuting edict, prohibiting Christians to assemble; threatening death to any bishop, priest, or deacon who resisted the anti-Christian orders of the empire; he exiled many of the bishops away from their place of service.
In 258 he issued a second edict, in which he said all ordained leaders of the Christian church were to be killed, without any hope of escape by recantation. All persons among the ranks of senators and knights were to lose their lives and all their property, if they were Christians and did not recant. Anyone who is a dependent of the empire, if he has ever professed Christianity, is to be sent to work on one of the imperial estates. So Valerian in 257 and 258, issued these strong edicts, carrying on the policy of Decius.
So
you see what happened. Thirty years of no persecution. Then suddenly, without
warning, Decius begins a great persecution, which lasts intermittently for
about three years. Then there are four years of no persecution; and then it
starts again. And you have a period of about three years of very intensive
persecution. But Valerian died and was succeeded by his son
3. Gallienus (260-268). And Gallienus was not a man like Decius or like Valerian, anxious to establish the empire solidly, and to reestablish the old conditions of the old days; he was a cynical trifler, who considered himself a philosopher, thinking about all sorts of things; but just sort of like a mental puzzle, comparing arguments for and against, and so on; and he didn't see why this people should be molested, and so he issued an edict stopping all persecution; it was addressed to certain of the Christian bishops, named by name in this edict, telling them that he was declaring it shall be unlawful to molest Christians. Christians are to have permission to carry on services; the church is entitled to hold properties; they are to be permitted to recover possession of their cemeteries; which they had been forbidden before by this edict; and it was an edict of toleration for Christianity which lasted for 40 years.
As soon as he became ruler, he made this edict; and it was more than 40 years before any edict was made that contradicted it. So it continued in force 40 years. If it had not been for the taking back of that edict, we would consider Gallienus as the man who put an end to persecution of Christianity.
This was the first edict of toleration. Christianity was tolerated; it was permitted; it was no longer illegal to be a Christian. You remember how under Trajan, all through the empire, it was understood to be illegal, but most of the emperors made no attempt to persecute them. If somebody would be brought before them—one of their magistrates—and they said he's a Christian, why they'd say, "That's a terrible accusation to make, is it true?" The man would say, "No, I'm not a Christian." "That's fine; now you just sacrifice to the god here; we'll let you go; no further questions." But if he would insist he was a Christian, would refuse to sacrifice, he might of course be persecuted under any of the emperors, But in general there was very little persecution
Now, all sorts of terrible calamities came upon the Roman Empire. There were pestilences—one after the other—that cut the population nearly in half. Terrible epidemics spread over the empire in the reigns of Valerian and of Gallienus. Thousands of people died in the pestilence; there were tidal waves; there were famines; there were attacks by barbarians; there were all sorts of difficulties at this time. And in these difficulties the pagans, as a rule, would flee even when their best friend or some member of their family, suddenly became sick with the terrible pestilence; they knew most people would die; they would run and keep away from them as much as possible, trying to save themselves; while the Christians were caring for each other, and also caring for the heathen.
And it made a tremendous impression on the Roman world—the attitude of the Christians in helping out in these times of plague. In fact between the two persecutions of Decius and Valerian, in that brief four-year period, there had been so much help given to the pagans by the Christians during the terrible pestilence, that they say you could see a difference in the attitude of the general mass of people toward Christianity. The persecution of Decius—well that's what the emperor wants to do—the people were not hostile to Christianity now like they were fifty years before; and many of the mobs trying to get the Christians killed, that attitude wasn't there anymore; but they were indifferent. Whereas in Valerian's persecution, a great many of the people actively sympathized with the Christians, even if they were not Christians themselves. And the good deeds the Christians had done during those terrible calamities seems to have had a good deal to do with changing the attitude of people toward the Christians.
Now
an emperor I want to mention, who was not nearly so important in relation to
persecution, but was an important emperor at this time, is
4. Aurelian (270-275). As you can see, I'm not taking nearly all the emperors, but just the ones who are quite important, for our present purposes. And this man, Aurelian, is from our present viewpoint much less important than Decius or Valerian, or Gallienus. He was a devoted worshipper of the sun-god, and there's some evidence that at the end of his reign, he was thinking of starting a persecution of Christians. But he did not actually do it.
During his reign, at one time, there was a great dispute in the great city of Antioch, because the Bishop was declared to be heretical in his views. We will look at him later. Now I just want to mention the part of Aurelian. The bishops of the surrounding territory met, examined the Bishop of the great city of Antioch, second largest city in the Roman Empire, they found he was heretical, unworthy of being bishop, ordered him to be deposed from being bishop. And the bishop there kept on and ignored them, and later on both parties appealed to the emperor, and this pagan emperor, worshipper of the sun-god, gave orders that the Bishop of Rome and of Italy, should be asked to render a decision on the matter, and said that the church of Antioch, the building, the property should go to whichever group the Bishops of Italy should decide was the right one. Now this was a natural decision for the emperor to make. He had to make the decision. What did he know about the internal affairs of the church? But here are these many churches in Italy, the headquarters, the center of the Empire, let their leaders decide the matter and we will abide by their decision. But it is quite a far cry from the days of Trajan, When Christianity was a forbidden religion to a situation where a pagan emperor is asked to decide to whom the property right belongs.
Now
Aurelian, then, reigned from 270-275, then you have a period of various rather
weak emperors until 284.
5. Beginning of Diocletian's Reign (284-305). This is 284 and he was still reigning at the end of the century. So you see he reigned longer than any emperor had except Septimius Severus. So we want to note just a little about Diocletian, though the most important things about him we will discuss under the next century. But in this century was a man who had been the son of a slave, and by his hard work and energy and ability he had worked himself up in the Roman Empire until he was now the head of the imperial guard; and Diocletian, as the head of the imperial guard, had during his life seen the constant change of emperors; he had seen the unsettled conditions; he meditated doubtless on the fact that some change was needed. And when an emperor suddenly died, and it was announced the emperor was dead, and his two sons succeeded him. They were rather worthless young fellows. One of them was with the army, and he died immediately; it was said that he was murdered by his father-in-law, who was there in the army and who now ruled in the name of his deceased son-in-law.
When the army discovered their emperor was actually dead, and this man had done this, Diocletian the chief of the imperial bodyguard attended the funeral; he had the man who was ruling in the name of his son-in-law—whom he had murdered—brought before him in chains; and without any investigation, Diocletian declared, "This is the murderer of Numerianus!" and plunged his sword into the man's breast. The troops then saluted Diocletian as their emperor. And after a short war, the other son was defeated, and Diocletian became the sole master of the Roman world.
Well, now this is exactly the sort of thing that was going on in the leadership of the empire for the previous 60 years; sudden changes like this, with one man murdering another and becoming emperor. But Diocletian saw that the situation was too well established to be brought to an end by peaceful measures; the only way to establish things on a solid basis was for somebody to get control by force and then to set up a new system; so he did not have an investigation; some people think perhaps if he had, he would have found the father-in-law was innocent in the whole business; but whether he was or not we don't know. But judging by his subsequent history, we are justified in thinking that Diocletian desired to establish the empire on a more solid foundation than it had been in recent years; and he felt that something drastic was necessary; and in this way, he who was well-established, was well liked, and known to be a man of great ability, he got control and then proceeded to make changes.
One thing was, he said, "The Empire is too large for one man to administer." So he said, "We will divide the empire into two parts; each part will have an Augustus, who will reign over it. One will be the head Augustus; he will be the supreme ruler; but the other, who is his associate, will reign with him, and each of them will have half the empire to administer." So he divided the Empire in half, a division which never wholly ended; the Empire was sometimes one again; but during the succeeding centuries, it was usually in two parts; and eventually the western part ended, and the eastern continued for another thousand years. So Diocletian made this division of the empire.
But then he went further. Now, he said, "Instead of 17 emperors in 65 years, many of them assassinated, we will establish a situation where it will not be to a man's advantage to assassinate the emperor." He said, "We will call each of the two emperors 'Augustus'; each emperor will have an assistant, whom we will call 'Caesar.' So there are four men running the empire, and these two Caesars will be picked out with great care; and each Augustus will have a Caesar working with him; and these two can administer one half of the empire, or they can divide their half into two parts, if they like, and each administer one; but the Augustus is supreme in that half; and there's one Augustus who is over the whole thing." And he said, "It's understood that each Caesar should succeed each Augustus; so if someone should assassinate Augustus, he can't become emperor, because Caesar is next in line; and that's thoroughly understood."
And then, he said, "We will make a rule that each Augustus after 20 years must resign. Twenty years is his term, then he resigns and the Caesar moves up to Augustus, and he takes another Caesar." Now you see, it's somewhat like the plan that worked so well in the 2nd century, where you had each emperor adopting a man, carefully selected, to be his successor. In fact, that system I think had worked better; but now you have had this century of upheaval and of turmoil, and all that to build on; whether you could introduce a system like that and have it work as well, who knows?
Then Diocletian saw how many assassinations there had been in these rapid turnovers; and some of these emperors had such freak ideas, that it lowered the general respect for the emperors. Diocletian said, "In order to establish unity in the state, we will do away with the old Republican forms in which nominally the emperor was elected, and the Senate had a lot of power and all that. The emperor will be thought as a representative of the gods; and people will bow down; keep their heads down as they crawl up to him; go through all these forms and ceremonies of recognizing him as almost a superhuman being; and that will keep him out of contact with the ordinary people, and there'll be less chance of his being assassinated; and over a period of time, we can again establish a condition in which the emperor's life will be safe for longer reigns and better stability in the nation."
Well, now for the next 16 years, Diocletian seems to have reigned, on the whole, very well. The Christians were not molested. In fact, Diocletian's own wife became a regular attendant in Christian churches, as did his daughter also—his daughter who was the wife of the Caesar who was associated with him. They regularly attended the Christian services. He established his capital In Asia Minor, in a town called Nicomedia; and in this city, the great Christian church that was built was right across the street from the imperial palace; it was the finest building in the city, next to the imperial palace. There was this long period of 40 years of no persecution, of which the last 16 were under Diocletian; and the church grew all over the empire. Lovely buildings were constructed everywhere, and great numbers of people were turning to Christianity; and it looked as if never again would there be any persecution against it.
This
gives you a survey then of the history of the Roman Empire during this period;
and, as you see, it is the early part of the period when the history of the
empire is most important for us, because these persecutions had tremendous
effect on the Christian church. And this shows itself particularly in
connection with one of the greatest figures of early church history who lived
at that time. So we will consecrate to him the capital letter F, as our next
head.
F. Cyprian. He is one of
truly great figures of early church history, a man who had a tremendous effect
upon the development of the church.
1. His life in general. Cyprian was a man who lived in North Africa. We have already discussed one man, Tertullian, who lived in North Africa. One of the greatest writers of the early Christian church, Tertullian lived a little earlier, and he died about 220. Cyprian was probably born about 200; whether he ever knew Tertullian personally or not, we do not know. But like Tertullian, Cyprian was educated to be a lawyer. He was highly trained in the literary abilities and the organizational abilities of the day, highly trained; he was a wealthy man; he had great estates; he was prominent in law, in rhetoric, and very much looked up to. But there was a fine presbyter named Caecilius who lived in Cyprian's home; he became such a good friend of Cyprian that he asked Cyprian to take care of his family after his death. And this man told Cyprian about Christianity, and got Cyprian to reading the Bible; he got him interested, and eventually Cyprian became a member of the class in this church.
Cyprian sold his estates and gave the money to the poor; but his friends thought so highly of him that they raised a collection, enough money to buy the estates back and give them back to him. He was baptized; he became a Christian; and he proceeded to go off alone, to study the Bible, and to study the works of Tertullian. We are told by a writer a century later, that he would say, "Hand me the map—asking for the writings of Tertullian—but he never mentioned Tertullian specifically by name in those writings. He copied a great deal from him, and was tremendously influenced by him; he thought very highly of Tertullian's ideas and Tertullian's writings. But not of the fact that Tertullian had become a heretic, because Cyprian himself became very much devoted to the idea of the church, loyalty to the church, the unity of the church.
But when he was studying and devoting himself this way to Christian studies and doing good work, the Bishop of Carthage, the leading city in North Africa there, died; and the people said, "Cyprian should be our bishop!" And Cyprian said, "No, 1 Tim. 3:6 says lay hands suddenly on no man; a neophyte should not be a bishop." He said, "I should not be the bishop. Get a man who is experienced in Christian things, who has been a member of the church for years." But no, they said, "Cyprian, you're the man who should be our bishop," and the people seem to have been united in wanting him; but five of the presbyters didn't want him. And these five presbyters opposed his election, and later on they formed a sect opposing his claim to be bishop; but the people seem to have been unanimous.
He was elected bishop, though he declared that he was not worthy and did not wish to be bishop; but after he was made bishop, he devoted himself to the administration of the church; and from the viewpoint of administration, of leadership, of factual matters, he is the most outstanding man in the history of the first three centuries—way ahead of anyone else who had been Bishop of Rome at that time, so far as any evidence that we have goes. And Cyprian, when the persecution broke out under Decius—for 13 months before that broke out, he had been bishop—he felt that the increasing worldliness in the church, and a superficiality in the church, there was a situation in which some fiery test was needed, to find out who really was Christian and who wasn't; and he became convinced God was going to send such a test; and he began preaching to the people on the necessity of forsaking worldliness and standing loyally and firmly for the Lord, regardless of what it would cost; and told them he felt that something was going to come in order to test who really was Christian and who wasn't.
And then suddenly the persecution broke out; and when the persecution broke out Cyprian fled; and he hid himself, and from his place of hiding he wrote letters to the church, dealing with the problems and trying to lead on in the administration of the church; and the presbyters who had opposed his election said, "This man is unworthy; he should stand here nobly, and should be killed if necessary for his faith, rather than to run and hide." But Cyprian said the church has not faced a problem like this for 30 years. He said there are tough problems and situations ahead; there are things that are difficult to handle, that need a strong hand and a clear head. He said the Lord has put me in this place for the good of the church; and it is my duty in this crisis to do everything I can to last until the crisis is over, in order that I may help keep the church on a firm foundation; and Cyprian had a great deal of criticism, but he stood his ground on that; and when the persecution stopped, he came back; and there was a little group that stood off from him, but most of them stood by him; and this small schism eventually disappeared. Well, we'll continue with Cyprian tomorrow morning.
We noticed that Cyprian was the greatest ecclesiastical leader, the greatest organizer, the greatest administrator of the first 300 years of the Christian church, from the time of the apostles. We took up number 1, His Life in General, and we noted something of his previous training and background; his conversion; how he was made Bishop comparatively soon after he had been baptized; and this of course was not a usual practice; it's something that the NT says should not be done, but I think we can understand that it is something that is not ordinarily the right thing to have done. The NT is here, as in many other cases, not giving us an inflexible rule, but giving us advice which in the majority of cases is wise. In the majority of cases, to take a man who has little training and a short time of Christian experience and promote him, goes to his head; it gives him a pride that he shouldn't have; it results in bringing out the worst in his character; and many a terrible failure has been made in the Christian church by a man who, humanly speaking, might have done a good work, if he were given more time to season, to develop, and to be ready before he was pushed ahead.
But there are exceptions, as there are for all rules of this type; which are not rules of right and wrong, but rules of what is wise procedure; and there are exceptions. And Cyprian is a very striking exception; and there are a few others also. But in his place, he was certainly a man who was fitted to be a leader beyond most of his generation; and they were very wise to take advantage of the opportunity to have a man of such unusual ability as head of the church of Carthage; and what none of them could have foreseen, nobody knew that those days would bring times of crisis, such as the church had never had; unless it be in Rome at the time of Nero. And a time of crisis was coming, in which unusual leadership was needed; and Cyprian gave that unusual leadership.
So we noticed that after he had been bishop for 13 months, there broke out this terrible persecution; and in the persecution he did not do the good thing, which—of course the bad thing to do would be to flee to save his life; or worse than that, to deny the faith. Those would be the very worst things—to deny the faith—and many did. And the next worst would be to flee to save his life. The good thing to do would be to bravely and nobly acknowledge his faith and suffer martyrdom for it. But Cyprian knew that in this particular day, there was a better thing to do than that. And that was to make available for the church the leadership that it needed in this time of crisis, which would have been lost to it if he had been martyred.
And so Cyprian fled and hid; but he did not in order to save his life; he did it in order to help the church with the leadership that was needed in this time of terrible crisis. Naturally, some called him a hireling—a hireling flees, abandons the sheep—John quoted the Lord. They called him a hireling; he was greatly criticized; but he displayed that rare sort of courage: the courage that goes beyond the courage that steps out and suffers for what is true; the courage that is ready not simply to stand the attacks and criticisms of the enemy of what you believe, but is ready to stand the misunderstanding of those who believe in what you believe, and the criticism of those who have the same objective you do, because you are doing the thing that will accomplish that which they desire, and that is the sort of courage that Cyprian displayed.
He kept his strong hand on the church from his place of hiding, constantly directing with letters and advice; he helped the church at Carthage to go through the crisis; and more than that, was available in the still more crucial time immediately after the crisis, when you had the two very tough problems of the people who had lapsed; they now wanted to be back in the church, and what are you going to do? Are you going to say, "Everybody who has denied the faith, everybody who has refused to suffer for the cause of Christ, is forever lost"? That of course was not true; it can't be true. On the other hand, are you going to say, "Well anybody who wants to come back—the danger is over now—just come; take leadership in the church; go forward as if nothing had ever happened." You can't say that. You have to distinguish between the true and the counterfeit. The people who really have regretted what they've done, and have truly repented, and are praying the Lord to give them greater strength, if such a crisis comes again; and the people who simply gave up in the time of danger and now are ready to go ahead as if nothing had happened, and, in fact, even to have leadership to which they certainly are not entitled. And they needed strong, wise hands for that; and they also needed them for that other danger which one might not expect at all: the danger of those who have nobly, bravely stood for the truth, now assuming a leadership for which they do not have the character or ability; and proceeding to lead the church in wrong directions; directions of ultra-fanaticism; directions of various extremes; or on the other side, directions of too much readiness to receive the lapsed back, without careful consideration, into the church.
These were the two opposite dangers; and a wise leadership was greatly needed at this time. And Cyprian was available for that leadership; and so for four years, Cyprian led the church wisely; carried on correspondence with the leaders of other churches all through the Roman Empire; exerted a great influence in favor of benefits to the church at that time; and also in favor of Cyprian's own particular ideas, some of which were very good and some weren't perhaps so good in the light of our understanding. But he exerted a great influence at that time.
And then, as you know, the persecution broke out again, under Valerian. This time the Proconsul ordered the bishops into exile; and Cyprian was sentenced to exile; but when they found that the many bishops in exile were acting as very effective missionaries—at the same time were directing their own churches by letter—Valerian saw that wasn't a satisfactory policy. He called them back from exile; and many of them were martyred; and during that ten years, I believe, there were four bishops of Rome who were martyred. But Cyprian was called back and the Proconsul called him before him; he asked him if he was a Christian; he gave him an opportunity to sacrifice, he pled with him to sacrifice, because he did not want to kill him; but when Cyprian boldly declared faith, he was taken out to the public square and publicly executed there. So he died a martyr, one who bravely and nobly declared his faith; he was ready to suffer and die for the cause of Christ; but he first had done the still braver thing of risking the criticism, opposition, and misunderstanding of those who stood for what he did, because he could do more for the church than if he had gone out and taken a martyrdom a few years earlier.
Now
that is a brief survey of his life; and we want to look in more detail at some
portions of it; I did it rather hastily, because I want to go on to some of the
important individual features.
2. Cyprian's Idea of the Church. And Cyprian's idea of the church is one which we do not think we find clearly taught in the NT. It is our feeling that it goes beyond the NT teachings. And we Protestants feel that harm was done in the development of the church through the attitude that Cyprian's great ability advanced about the church. That is, Cyprian held—like Ignatius had—to the very, very great authority of the bishop in the church. Cyprian held that the bishop was the authority in the church; and that the people in the church should obey the bishop; he was studying the scripture; he was giving himself over to the things of the Lord; he was devoted to the Lord for that service; so the people should obey him in any particular situation that arose. He said the bishop is in the church and the church is in the bishops; and if anyone is not with the bishops he is not with the church.
He took a very, very strong position as to the authority of the bishops in the local church. He held that each church was a unit; the bishop was the divinely established leader of the church; and that for salvation one must belong to the church. Now he would not make church membership per se a way to be saved; nothing of the kind. He had a very definite understanding of salvation through faith in Christ; but he felt that the one who was saved through Christ should then go on to become a member of the church; and if he truly was saved he would become a member of the church. Now as you hear that much today, you will immediately say, "Well, now Cyprian then had the Roman Catholic position, didn't he? The church is one church; with one bishop supreme over it; and that a true Christian must be a member of that church, and subject to the bishop of Rome."
Well, Cyprian did not hold that position. The Roman Church may try to make it look as if he did; but from his writings, it is very clear that that is not the position Cyprian held. Cyprian held more like the view of Ignatius—that each individual church was under the direction of its bishop. The person in that area who was a Christian should be a member of that church, and should follow that bishop. And all the bishops together were a unit; and the true church throughout the world was a single unit; but there was no one bishop superior to other bishops. And therefore, in North Africa, they kept on as they had been doing before; having synod meetings, at which the bishops from all the towns in Africa came together; there might be 80 different bishops, that is, heads of the different churches in particular towns. One might be Cyprian, head of the church in Carthage the great metropolis; another might be the head of a church in a town of 150 people; but they were bishops; they were the heads of their local churches; and they together were a unit; and in the synod, they would discuss and make decisions on matters of common interest.
He held that Rome—as it was the capital of the empire, as Peter and Paul had established the church at Rome—that the church at Rome had a position of honor at the head of all the churches of the empire; as the capital city and the city where the two greatest apostles had reigned; but that it was only a position of honor, not a position of authority to give any commands to any other bishops. That was his viewpoint, which is made very clear in his letters and articles which he wrote.
Now of course, it is a very interesting thing that Cyprian so greatly admired the writings of Tertullian; he read them constantly, and is tremendously affected by Tertullian; and yet at this point, Tertullian would be utterly contrary to him; because Tertullian had left the Catholic Church; and whether he actually joined the Montanists, or whether he simply worked along with them, we don't have proof. He was generally considered a Montanist. And two centuries later, there were people who called themselves Tertullianists, who were separate from the catholic church. Well, this probably is the reason why Cyprian never mentioned Tertullian in any of his writings. He probably was very much offended at what Tertullian had done in that regard. But nevertheless, he took Tertullian as his great master and constantly read his writings, and was tremendously influenced by him.
Well,
now so much then on Cyprian's idea of the church which, you can see, would have
an influence on the development of the church throughout the world, and an
effect on people's attitude, an effect in the direction of strengthening the
authority of the bishops. Now, in a time of persecution like this, a time of
difficulty, a strong hand of leadership meant a great deal to the church; no
question of that, and for the particular situation it was a good thing; but
whether for its development over the long period, there might be great
difference of opinion on that. But that's his idea of the church; that is what
Episcopalians are apt to stress about Cyprian; that is what Romanists are apt
to stress about Cyprian; it is an important fact about him, though by no means
the only fact about him. So we go on to
3. The Controversy over his Flight. We've already mentioned this in connection with his life, but it is important enough to give a separate head to it. As we mentioned, in the persecution he fled. And "the hireling flees because he is an hireling and cares not for the sheep." And that is what was said about Cyprian. But Cyprian fled not because he was a hireling and didn't care for the sheep, but because he was a leader who did care; and he knew that they needed his leadership in this time of crisis; and the majority of the people—the majority of the Christians, I mean—understood. They realized that this was the fact. And that was true of people in any sort of a church undertaking or situation. You cannot say, "This man does this, acting bad; this man does this, acting good." You cannot say that. Because the particular view can say a certain act is, in most cases, good; or a certain act is, in most cases, bad; but there are a few acts which, in certain circumstances, are that which best advance the cause of Christ. God alone judges the heart; and we're grateful for this, because he sees what the motives were in the act; what the purpose was; what was really involved in the particular situation.
But
Cyprian fled and hid; yet he carried on his correspondence, and his direction
of the church; and he received a letter from the presbyters in Rome, who were
in prison, a letter which spoke in very high terms—realizing what he was
doing—and the same time telling him of the blessing they were receiving in
their suffering for Christ. Cyprian, in defending himself, made this statement:
he said our Lord commanded us in times of persecution to yield and to fly. He
taught this and he practiced it himself. For the martyr's crown is by the Grace
of God, and it cannot be gained before the appointed hour; he who retires for a
time and remains true to Christ, does not deny his faith; he only bides his
time. Of course, that might have been just an excuse to cover up personal
cowardice, but the Lord knows. And most people felt Cyprian was sincere; and
all felt that had been proven when in the next persecution he was martyred. But
it is an important thing in connection with his life, this controversy over his
flight.
4. The Problem of the Lapsed. What was to be done about the people who had denied the faith? Were these people to be told, "Now you have sacrificed; you have bought a libellus; you have failed to suffer for the cause of Christ; you are lost forever"? They were not to be told that, because we are told in the scripture that there is hope of deliverance for those who fall into sin.
Well, of course, in a sense we all are lapsed, because every person sins every day. But a true Christian when he sins, repents; he sincerely regrets what he has done, and he determines that he will not do it again; that he will ask the Lord to strengthen and enable him not to do it again; and knows that gradually the Lord will sanctify him; so that he will do less and less that is contrary to God's will; though he will constantly have a better understanding of what it is; so that to himself he may seem a greater sinner after 50 years of the Christian life than he did when he started; he is more aware of his sins. But in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of the Lord, he will have gone very far in his sanctification.
Well, this is not a case of ordinary sin, but a case of doing a terrible thing—of sacrificing to idols—or of getting a certificate that you had sacrificed—which is deceit and may involve bribery—even if you hadn't actually sacrificed. And it is a terrible thing—falling into idolatry—but it is a sin which occurred in a crisis, because of inability to face the terrible torture and misery which was ahead if one stood nobly by his faith. Well, these people had lapsed; they had left the church; they had sacrificed; they had given up the faith. Now what's going to happen? The persecution is over; these people want to be members of the church; they want to be recognized and go on; what's going to happen? Well, you can't just say, "Come back; we know it was tough to face that persecution; but it's over now; come back; so happy to have you to be a member of the church." You cannot do that. The church would cease to be a church if you take that attitude. You have to have evidence of true repentance; evidence of true turning away from the thing; evidence of true desire that the Lord will give strength, never again to fall before temptation. How are you going to be sure you have that strength? Just what sort of test is going to be made? How are you going to be certain? How long are you going to keep them waiting before you receive them again into full and easy communion? What are you going to do?
Well, the lapsed—many of them—found a way out. They had a friend who was a brave, noble confessor, who gave them a letter; he said, "You recognized what I did; you venerate me as a saint, because of the way I stood for the Lord. Now I want you, for my sake, to forgive my friend." And of course it's true; we are forgiven for Jesus' sake, because he suffered bravely; suffered the results of sin in our behalf. And his merits are secured to us; then why can't our merits be imputed to somebody else? Well, we don't have any merits worth anything; we don't deserve any credit, any of us; and in addition to that, it is not as in the case of Christ's saving us—a matter of delivering us from the wrath of God into His eternal salvation. It's an entirely different matter. If we are to be delivered from eternal wrath, it cannot be through what some other man has done. That's impossible. No one of us could suffer enough to pay for our own sins. It must be through Christ and Him alone.
Here we are not speaking of a question of eternal wrath; this is a question of human wrath, of destruction to the church, here in this world; and that is a matter in which these things must be determined; not as a matter of whether one is really saved or not, because we can't judge; but as to what is for that soul's welfare and for the welfare of the church? And it is for the soul's welfare and the welfare of the church, to receive people back into full communion if they are saved; and are truly repentant; and have truly turned away from the sin. Consider the sin of David. David was received back into full forgiveness, even called the man after God's own heart. But if we do not have the true repentance, it is harmful to us and harmful to the church. So Cyprian wanted to examine each case on its merits; but the confessors—many of them were very wonderful people—deserving all veneration and praise given them; but some of whom were rather weak people—made vain by the praise they were given—and anxious to please others. And some of them may perhaps have been people who lived rather wicked lives, and who had thought that, by their bravery in standing for the faith, were making up for it. A lot of these confessors were giving letters to other people, saying now they ought to be received back into the church; that's what we want you to do; we're confessors.
And some of the confessors even wrote letters in which they said, "I want all the lapsed to be received back." So Cyprian had to face this problem. And they would say to him, "Well who are you to talk? We stood up and faced the Roman Government; we declared our faith and risked being killed; and you fled, you went off and hid. What right have you got to talk about what we should do in this situation? We are the real saints; you don't have a right to speak, and we think these people should be brought back into full communion." Cyprian said, "Yes, I think they should be too if they are truly repentant. I've got to examine them and to know."
So there was a big controversy over the lapsed in Carthage; and Cyprian succeeded in carrying through his policies pretty well, though he ran into some pretty tough situations. One that was particularly bothersome was that somebody would come and say, "Cyprian, this man here is dying he is dying; and he lapsed; he couldn't stand the thought of the suffering and the persecution; and he just poured a little incense in front of the altar, when he couldn't stand the thought of it; and they offered him a certificate of sacrifice and he took it. And now he's dying and he is crying out on account of his sins; and he wants to die knowing that he is a member of the church, and that you've forgiven him for his sins; and that Christ is ready to receive him; do come and see him!"
So Cyprian would go and he would try to comfort the dying man; he'd tell him, "Oh yes, you're dying, and I believe you're truly repentant; we recognize you as a full member of the church in every way." And then in some cases the person got well. And then when he got well, he came in the church as fully a member of the church in every way, while somebody else was being held in probation. This problem of the lapsed was one which almost split the church in Carthage at this time; and it did split it 50 years later, but that's in the next century. But at this time, it almost split. Now there was a man there in Carthage named Novatus—not to be confused with Novation. But Novatus, according to all the accounts—which may be corrupt because they're also his enemies—but according to the accounts, Novatus was one of the presbyters who had told Cyprian off and who had been against his being appointed in the first place and was constantly attacking him; and Novatus went around among the lapsed and said, "This fellow Cyprian here is taking an extreme attitude; and Cyprian has no right to take it; he himself fled, and he should be thrown out as bishop." And finally Novatus got tired of having a little group around him—his little group that was broken away—and not getting far; and he said, "I'm going over to Rome, and see what I can do there."
So
Novatus went across the Mediterranean to Rome, the capital of the empire. But
he had sense enough before he started talking to listen a little; and according
to the story, when he listened he found the situation in Rome was just the
opposite of what it was in Corinth. So,
5. The Novatian Schism. Now Novatian is the name of a man; and Novatian is a man whose name sounds very much like the name Novatus, whom I mentioned to you as in Carthage who went to Rome. But actually—judging by what we find in the records, what has come down to us from the time—he was a very, very different sort of person from Novatus. Now they say we know about a person by his enemies. Nothing that Novatus wrote has been kept; of course, nothing would be kept unless people copied or preserved it; who cares? On the other hand, Novatian had written some theological treatises of real value, which are highly thought of. Novatian had been a presbyter in Rome. He had been imprisoned for his faith. It was only the end of the persecution by the death of Decius and the accession of Valerian—it was only that which saved Novatian from being killed for his faith. He had nobly confessed the faith; he had written theological treatises before which were widely used and highly thought of. Of his Christian character I have found no question anywhere.
But the Bishop of Rome had been killed in the persecution; and they proceeded to elect a new bishop; they elected a man named Cornelius, not particularly important except that he happened to be the man who was elected; and Cornelius took a very mild attitude toward the lapsed, like others had done before. Cornelius made it easy: "Well, the church wants to welcome back her erring children. They have failed in the persecution; they have, of course, failed; how do you know that you would have the courage to stand up to having your eyes plucked out or having terrible torture given to you? How do you know you could do it? If these people say they're repentant, we'll take their word and receive them back." Cornelius was very, very mild toward the lapsed.
And many people thought Novatian should have been elected bishop. Novatian was a good theologian, a man of much more ability than Cornelius; a man who had a standing in the church; he'd been a presbyter for many years; he had known and confessed the faith in prison; why wasn't Novatian elected as the bishop? Well, Novatian said, "It is in the Lord's hand who is elected bishop. I'm perfectly content; if the people want me for bishop, I will be glad to do what I think is right; but if the people elect Cornelius, why that's not for me to worry about."
There's no evidence that Novatian was a grasping man, a man trying to push himself ahead, or anything of the kind. But Novatian did feel that Cornelius was absolutely wrong in his treatment of the lapsed. It was exactly the reversed situation to Carthage. In Carthage, Cyprian was strict, and the lenient people were criticizing Cyprian. Well, Novatian would have been much stricter than Cyprian was. The writers usually speak of him as the stern, ruling presbyter. That's the way they like to speak about Novatian—the puritan who stood exactly on the letter of the law, felt that people should be punished for their sins; and whether that is just the view of his enemies, we don't know. But that's the way they talk.
But nobody that I've seen accuses Novatian of personal ambition—personal pushing himself, personal pique because he wasn't elected bishop. But according to the best you can get from the few statements we have about him from this time, this man Novatus—who came over from Carthage, who got to Rome and who in Carthage had so severely criticized Cyprian for being too strict—got to Rome and instead of talking right away, he stopped and listened; then he saw that the situation was just reversed, and he began to criticize the Bishop of Rome for being too lenient. So he began throwing his active propagandizing influence in support of the little group that was standing with Novatian in criticizing Cornelius for being too lenient. And Novatus would stir them up and say, "Look here, that is not the true church of Christ, with a man like Cornelius who is so easy-going with the people who have fallen into sin; they ought to have a real theologian like Novatian as Bishop, a man who stands firmly for the truth, who would not promise the way Cornelius does." And he talked it up to the point where the followers of Novatian said, "Novatian, we don't believe this man Cornelius is the real bishop at all." They said, "You're the one who should be bishop and we're going to say so; and we're going to have our own church and you're going to be our bishop."
Novatian didn't want to do it; he didn't want to be the leader unless it was what the Lord called him to be. But he did want to see the stand taken, that he felt was the right stand in this matter. So Novatian gave in and there was formed what I call here "The Novatian Schism," because it was not a division over doctrine. There was no claim of unbelief in the catholic church, no such claim. There was no heresy on the part of the Bishop of Rome. But there was an attitude which Novatian thought was wrong and had criticized; and others persuaded him to make a sufficient issue to form a separate group, a separate communion.
So in Rome a sizeable number of people joined with Novatian to form a separate church. And then all the churches in the empire faced the question, "What is the true church in Rome, is it that of Cornelius or that of Novatian?" And Cyprian said, "Which side did the majority vote for?" Well, the majority had voted on the side of Cornelius. And the organization was continuing; there was no evidence of heresy or unbelief in the organization. Cyprian said, "It sounds to me as if they are taking a wrong position on this vital matter. But it is the true church, the church of which Cornelius is the head, the capital church." And consequently, Cyprian said, "We consider that the true church of Christ is the church of which Cornelius is head; and although these people who are following Novatian are not heretics, we know one of them Novatus, and he's a bad troublemaker. But they are not heretics, they are true Christians. Nevertheless, they are out of the body of Christ; they are outside of the capital church. That's the attitude Cyprian took toward the Novatian schism. But there were other people, we think, in other churches, who said, "We think Novatian is right; he is the true church. We will enter into correspondence with Novatian as the true church; and three centuries later you have churches in many parts of the Roman empire in the Novatian movement.
This is a real denomination. It is a denomination which lasted for at least three centuries. It disappeared with the coming of the middle ages. I'm not sure anybody knows just how long it lasted, or just where the last remnants of it were. But I have never seen any accusation of heresy connected with any part of the Novatian branch of the church, which continued for at least three centuries. We don't know much about it, because practically all our records have come through the catholic church, and they don't like Novatian; they call him a schismatic, but they do not call him heretic.
Well, actually, I would like to go there, and talk with the people, and look into the facts a little more clearly. I have no evidence on it except from the statements that have been preserved, all by enemies of Novatian; but as to who is right in the situation, I would personally feel that the difference of opinion was a difference over method, rather than difference of doctrine. I don't think there's any question that we will find that Cornelius and Novatian are both of them earnest men—and I'm certainly sure that Cyprian was—honored men in the kingdom of God. I don't think there's any question of that. And I personally incline to believe that Novatian's followers did a great and good work during the next three centuries, and deserve much praise of the Lord for the particular work that they did. But they never became a great movement—though they were a very valuable one—and spread rather widely in the church. They probably never became more than a fifth as large as the catholic church, if that much. But in a small area they did a good work; and we will see some vestiges of that in a later time. Now it is important enough to warrant a heading by itself; but we know so comparatively little about it, that I've simply taken it up here as a subhead under Cyprian because it is so tied up with the whole movement of which he was the great individual at this time.
So my outline here is not purely a matter of what is important, but also do we have enough material to make a heading of it? I'd be tempted to give a separate heading to the Novatian schism as G or something like that. But I'll just make it 5.
[student] In the end, according to the best we can gather, from the statements of their enemies, it was Novatus' propaganda and Novatus' personal attitude that produced the Novatian schism. Now that may not be so, but the schism took the opposite stand to that which Novatus took in Carthage; and its leader was a great and good man, of whom the worst that can be said, as far as I can gather—but it is said—is that he was a gloomy person; that's the worst they can say about him.
Of course, the Roman Church calls him an anti-pope; they call him the second anti-pope; the first anti-pope being Hippolytus, because of their present theory that Döllinger worked out—that Hippolytus became a bishop in Rome, claiming to be the true bishop in Rome. Well, we don't know whether that's true or not, but Novatian certainly did; they called him an anti-pope; but the fact of the matter is that we don't have records of this time calling the bishop of Rome pope. But we do have a letter from the Roman presbyter in prison written to Cyprian. It was addressed to him as "Dear Pope Cyprian." They called Cyprian pope because pope was a name applied to any great Christian leader; and evidence shows that the name pope was applied by a Roman to the bishop of Carthage and the bishop of Alexandria, before there's any evidence of its ever having been applied to the bishop of Rome.
So
much then for the Novatian schism, perhaps I should have called it the
beginning of the Novatian schism. We unfortunately will not have much more to
say about the Novatian schism, because we don't know much about it. But we
will—when we get to a period about 130 years after this—we will have a very
brief reference to it, which is rather illuminating and quite important; it
makes me think that there must be a great deal of real interest about the
Novatian church through the next two or three centuries, if we had the
evidence. But all the evidence has disappeared; there was nobody left to keep
it alive, and copy the accounts of it, and to tell us about it. The most we
know is its beginning, and this one brief bit of light thrown on the Novatians
130 years later, which we will mention when we get to it. So we go on to
6. The Problem of Heretical Baptism. This is a problem which has been with the church all through history, and still is today. What is heretical baptism? Well, like so many cases where we have a noun with an adjective before it, you have to tell what is its relation to the noun. In this case, by heretical baptism, we mean baptism by a heretic. Here is a man who wants to be received into your church; and he professes faith in Christ; and he professes to accept the teachings of your church; and you want to receive him but you say, "Have you been baptized?" And he says, "Yes I was baptized but the man who did it was an unbeliever," or "the man who did was a little bit off on his ideas, he was a post-tribulation rapturist, and he baptized me." Now should that be accepted as true baptism? You were baptized by a man who was off on that particular doctrine. What should your attitude be? Well, if I am correctly informed, the Southern Baptist church takes no chances on it; if a man wants to join their church, even if he has been baptized in another Baptist Church six miles away, they baptize him over again to make sure that he's been baptized by a true believer.
Well, now that I believe is the practice of the Southern Baptist Church; whenever you join a local church you are baptized again. There are many other Baptist churches which hold you have to be baptized by a Baptist minister, but he doesn't have to be in that particular local church or in that particular denomination. But the attitude of the Christian church from the beginning has usually been this: that baptism is the initiatory rite to the Christian church; and that no man can bring somebody into the Christian church; that that is done by the Lord; and what matters is baptism of the Holy Spirit, baptism into the body of Christ, not the act that some human being performs for us; and therefore that if a person has been baptized; and the words have been used in connection with the baptism, that they are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and it has been the purpose to give a real Christian baptism; that that man is baptized; and that that baptism is not to be repeated.
Now that was the attitude which was taken in general by the Christians, as far as our evidence goes, until this time. But at this time, we find that Cyprian, for one, felt that the Church was definitely a unit; and that you must be a member of the Church; and here comes somebody that is a member of some other group that calls themselves a Christian church; and he's not sure it is; and while they believe they want to belong to his church; well, we'd better baptize them again. And we won't say they've been baptized before; we'll baptize them now. And the Novatian group, when someone from the Catholic church came to the Novatian group they said, "Well, now, he's joining us; now he's getting the truth on these things; we're going to baptize him again." So the Novatians were re-baptizing people who, having been in the other groups, came and joined their group; and Cyprian was re-baptizing people who had been in heretical groups, or schismatic groups, and came and joined his group. But Cornelius said, "No, if a person is baptized in the church, only Christ can baptize; man only performs an outward expression, it is God who baptizes into the body of Christ." And he said, "If a person has been baptized, he has been baptized; and we cannot baptize him over again." And therefore, Cornelius took the attitude that if a person has been baptized, and the words which relate to true belief in the Trinity and the true baptism into Christ have been used, then that man is baptized and does not need to be baptized again. That is the view of the Roman Church to this day.
To this day—theoretically—the Roman Church accepts baptism no matter by whom it is performed. The Lord's Supper is different. Most churches feel that an ordained man must perform the Lord's Supper. In the Roman Church, only a priest can perform the mass; but in the view of the Roman Church, anybody can baptize. Ordinarily it should be done by a minister; but anyone who is using the words of baptism, "into the name the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit," can baptize. That is the view which is taken by a great many Christian leaders, and it is the official view of the Roman Church today. Well, of course, later the Roman Church came to take a superstitious attitude toward baptism, that the action itself gave new birth; and a person who has been baptized has accomplished something, but they felt that that was accomplished no matter who did it. So every one of you could baptize anybody, and the Roman Church feels that made a difference in that man's becoming saved. Well, Cyprian didn't hold that view. And there was a big controversy over this question of heretical baptism, in which Cyprian and many other Bishops took a different view. But Cornelius took the view which has prevailed.
Well, I see our time is up we'll continue tomorrow morning.
We looked at 5, the Novatian Schism, which was worthy of a main heading because it was an important movement. But we do not know a great deal about it, and it fits in one connection with the life of Cyprian, about whom we do know a great deal; so I've put it as 5 under that, though I'm not particularly well satisfied with that. That's the problem with any outline you do. You have to deal with the importance of the material, also with the amount available, and the amount of time you have. So when our outline doesn't satisfy me, I like to call your attention to that. Number 6 was the problem of heretical baptism. And we noted that in this, Cyprian took a very strong stand against recognizing heretical or even schismatic baptism. They had to be baptized when they entered the church. He found that in the case of infants born of Christian parents who promised to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, there was reason to postpone the baptism. He would perform it sometimes even within the first week, which some thought was too early.
But when it came to people who had been in heretical groups or schismatic groups, he insisted that when they come into the church, they should be baptized regardless of what might have happened to them in the past. The Bishop of Rome very, very strongly opposed this view; and the view of the Bishop of Rome has prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church, and in the greater number of the Protestant churches. In the greater number of Protestant churches it is felt, while the giving of the Lord's Supper should be limited to those who are specially ordained for the purpose, and the normal thing is to have a minister perform the baptism, yet in the majority of Christian church, it is recognized that anyone who has performed something that is indeed Christian baptism, and it is done in the name of Christ, that such a one is regarded as having been baptized.
Now this view Cyprian opposed; the Bishop of Rome favored it; it is the view of the Roman Catholic Church to this day. Any Protestants who become convinced of Roman Catholicism and join the Roman Catholic Church, today, may feel that they have never been baptized, and they want to be baptized by the priest; and so the Roman Church in recent years made a formula to cover that—it is against the law of the church to baptize anyone who has already been baptized—but they do say, "How do we know that this man has been baptized? How do we know for sure that it has happened? And how do we know that the words 'in the name of Christ' really were used?" So they say, "If this person has never been baptized, I now baptize thee." They use that formula in order to protect themselves from breaking the law of the Church. But I think even then, they only do it if the people request it.
Now, of course, according to our viewpoint, what matters is not whether any man has baptized a person, but if a person really believes, he is baptized into the Lord and saved whether any human rites have been gone through or not. And I would think personally, if the situation was like that described there, if the young man were one who had been considering the claims of Christ—she perhaps had been witnessing to him, she had reason to believe that he had really accepted the Lord, he was dying—I would think that it might be in a such a case an interesting gesture for her to give a symbol of his belief, but I don't think it would make the slightest difference in his salvation whether any human rite was ever performed or not. We hold that if a person truly accepted Christ and believed on him, the Holy Spirit baptized him into Christ, whether there was any human ceremony or not.
Well, the Baptist Church is divided into many different groups; and there are Baptists who believe that it is a visible witness to the world of what is in their hearts; and there are others who call themselves Baptists who believe that it is absolutely necessary to salvation. There are many different groups. But I think most of us—whom we would call real Christians, Baptists—would hold that it was a symbol rather than that it was necessary to salvation.
In the early days—in the Roman Empire, in the 2nd or 3rd centuries—there were certain pagan mysteries, so-called, into which people were initiated by various types of so-called baptism; and in one of these, they had what they called the Taurobolium, in which a man was put in a little room with rafters above, a space between them; and above on those rafters they would kill a bull, so that the blood would flow down, would sprinkle down over the man; and that was the initiatory rite into this particular mystery; it was supposed to give that person a blessed eternity.
Now some have tried to make it out that Christian baptism comes from that; but it's more likely that that was an imitation of Christian baptism. We have baptism long before that. But there've been many, many different forms; and to this day, we have groups in America which insist you have to be baptized in one particular mode, another particular mode; some say you have to be immersed forward; some say you have to be immersed backward. I know of a man here in Philadelphia who was a Presbyterian thirty years ago; and he went to a school, and one of the teachers there persuaded him that in order to be saved you have to be immersed; and they had a big service at which this man was immersed; and one of the other students in this fine Christian school, who belonged to a different group, persuaded the man that in order to properly be saved, he must be immersed three times. So they had another service in which he was immersed three times. Now these two men are both wonderful Christian men, with whom I have very excellent fellowship, but they're in two different denominations, one of which baptized by one immersion, the other is very insistent on triple immersion; but I think if the Lord cared what sort of method we used, he would have specified it in Scripture.
The important thing is that we're baptized into the Lord; and if the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the Lord, it is a very fine thing to give a witness for Christ by some sort of a manifestation to the world; that we believe; that we have been born into Christ, united with him; but certainly no word in the Bible says that it is necessary for salvation, to have an external baptism.
But
our present subject here is Cyprian's attitude on this, and we've noticed how
Cyprian and some others held a very strong position on it; but the Bishop of
Rome took a very strong position in the other direction, and so we mention
7. Cyprian's Relation to Rome. And it is rather important that we understand Cyprian's relation to Rome; because in the case of Cyprian, we have already noticed his idea of the church; and his idea of the church is one which doubtless gave an impetus in the direction which eventually resulted in the present organization of the Roman Catholic Church. And his idea of the unity of the catholic church, and the powers and leadership of the bishop, was something which helped in the development of its present type of organization. It is a type of organization which, in a practical way, is certainly not confined to the Roman Catholic Church at all; there are other organizations which have followed a similar type of organization.
I don't know just how the Methodist Church organization is today, I haven't been in close touch with it; but when I was a boy, I remember understanding that in a Methodist Conference, the bishop and one of the ministers could outvote all the rest of the ministers together. The bishop was the absolute authority in the conference. And in the church the minister and one member could outvote all the rest of the members. In the Methodist Church at that time, there was a hierarchical, monarchical type of government similar to that which developed to quite an extent in the Roman Catholic Church. Now that may have been loosened up quite a bit, I don't know.
On the other hand, the Episcopal—the Anglican—church, has developed in the last 300 years in a direction in which the bishop today has practically no power, except a ceremonial power. In the Anglican Church a few years ago, the Bishop of Birmingham (in England) denied that there was almost anything in the Scripture you could believe. And the Archbishop of Canterbury declared that this was wicked and wrong; that nobody should accept these views; but the Bishop of Birmingham went right on, saying what he wanted. In fact, in more recent years, the Archbishop of Canterbury has stood, in the main, for the teachings of Scripture, while the Dean of Canterbury is an out-and-out Communist, who preaches Communism. He's the Dean in the Cathedral there, at the headquarters of Canterbury; and the Archbishop of Canterbury is the head of the church of England; yet there's nothing in the world he can do to affect his dean. And the Episcopal organization has become one in which the power of the bishops is very, very nominal today. But that's a historical development—of the Episcopal church; while the Methodists, which came out of the Episcopal, developed into a very tight sort of organization.
Now Cyprian never thought of the present organization of the Roman Catholic Church, with one head over it all; his attitude was of one head over the local church; and by the way you find that in Baptist churches today. In most of the Baptist churches, the theory is that every Baptist church is a separate unit; absolutely independent, with nothing to do with any other. But there is no denomination—outside the Roman Catholic, and perhaps the Methodist—in which the minister has been as autocratic and as dictatorial as in many Baptist churches in the last half century. In many of them, you see the minister has been the Pope of that local church; it is a situation which has occurred in a great many. We have these varieties of development in church governments and organizations. Well, Cyprian, holding as he did to the bishop's power, and holding to the unity of all the bishops in the catholic church—that's a theoretical thing but it's very hard to carry out in practice—and it has developed in the direction of the present Roman idea that the Bishop of Rome is over all the bishops; and he has complete power over them, as they have over their people. But Cyprian himself conceded a leadership to the bishop of the capital of the empire. He had the first place of honor.
Now
Cyprian wrote to the contemporary Bishop of Rome and told him in no uncertain
terms where he thought he was wrong. And when the Bishop of Rome told Cyprian
that Cyprian must not re-baptize people baptized by heretics, Cyprian wrote
back to the Bishop of Rome and told him he was completely wrong, and that he
should do it; and the language which Cyprian used showed that he recognized no
authority in the Bishop of Rome superior to his own authority. So his relation
to Rome is an interesting thing in connection with his idea of the church, to
show that actually he is not a witness for the present Roman Catholic
organization. Now these things were not mentioned in their discussion, but they
said a good deal about the other things—in what he says about the
Bishop—because he did help in the development of that which came to be the
present theoretical organization of the Church of Rome.
8. Cyprian's Martyrdom. We notice how Cyprian fled at the first persecution. He was subjected thereby to great criticism; but he showed the greatest kind of courage, not simply the courage to stand up and take things from your enemies, but the courage to take misunderstanding from your friends; to do that which will advance the cause of Christ, even though the other people who are standing for Christ misunderstand you and criticize you. And the people about whose goodwill you care are many of them alienated by it. He had that sort of courage. And that's one of the things which made him a great leader.
But now, in these four years of safety from persecution, Cyprian was able to deal with this problem which had come out of the persecution; he was able to get his ideas understood pretty well by a great part of the church; he was able to get a substantial portion of the church into thorough support of his ideas; and the little groups that had come out of the church had formed a new schismatic group in Carthage had broken up and disappeared, and most of them had come back into the church, into the catholic church as they called it. And Cyprian was no longer as vitally needed as he had been before; and the opportunity came for him then to remove the stain upon his name, which had been placed there by the misunderstanding of other Christians who could not see his heart, and went only by his actions, and interpreted the actions the wrong way.
The great persecution—as you remember—under Valerian broke out, an edict that all the bishops should be exiled; and Cyprian was ordered to go away from Carthage; and he went away to another section, but he kept on writing to his people and exerting considerable influence. And then the second edict came out the next year; a new proconsul was sent to Africa, and he had very strict orders; though Cyprian was only the bishop of one church—he had no authority over any part of North Africa except Carthage, yet Carthage was the largest city, and this was the largest church, and he was by far the most able man; so his actual leadership over the church of North Africa was very well known, and widely recognized. And this proconsul gave the order that Cyprian be brought back from exile, and put on his own ground; and there he was out of communication with others—with guards around him—and there he was for a time.
And then the proconsul sent the order to have Cyprian brought before him; Cyprian came before the proconsul, and the proconsul addressed him very kindly; he recognized him as a man of great ability, a man of standing in the Roman Empire; he asked him if he would not show his support of the Emperor, and his support of good order in Rome, by giving up this superstition that was undermining the solid basis of the Roman state; and just offering a little sacrifice. And Cyprian declared in round terms that he was a Christian; that he was a loyal subject of the Emperor, and obeyed him in all lawful matters; but that he was a Christian, and he could not sacrifice to any deity, or offer any service to any alleged superhuman being except Christ.
And when he had tried to persuade him and argued with him, the proconsul said, "Well there is nothing we can do then but carry out the orders from the Emperor. We will have to have you executed." And Cyprian said, "The Lord be praised! He has sent me the opportunity of suffering for Christ!" So that night Cyprian was allowed to meet for the last time with his elders and deacons; and he had a meeting with them, and a farewell service with them; and then the next day they took him out to a great place—out in the plain—outside of Carthage where a platform had been erected; and when they got out there they found that thousands of people had come out; but the attitude of these people was very, very different from the attitude of the people a century before—in the tine of Marcus Aurelius—when the people were calling these the wicked followers of this new superstition; this was only 150-170 years after Christ's time; the mob knew nothing about Christianity except that these were the people who were bringing the calamity upon the empire; and they were calling for the Christians be killed.
Now, there was no calling of the mob for Cyprian's blood at all; the officers were sorry they had to carry out the orders against this man they recognized as a good man, and a fine character. The people out there were respectful; there was no calling out against him, nothing; no attitude like that on the part of the general mob, though of course the great bulk of people were still pagan. One thing too that had contributed to this; in those four years after the first persecution, there had been these terrible pestilences, when the pagans would leave their best friends and run in terror lest they catch the thing; and when the Christians were caring, not only for the Christians, but for the pagans; and risking their own lives, and many of them dying in the pestilence because of way that they tried to alleviate the sufferings of others. And what the Christians had done to help alleviate human suffering had done a great deal to change the attitude of people toward them during this time.
So they took Cyprian out there, they brought him up onto the platform there; and Cyprian was dressed in his very best; and there Cyprian said farewell to his elders and deacons; and then he took his purse and took out a sum of gold and handed it to the executioner as a gift; and then he took his coat off, laid it down smoothly beside him there; one of his elders came up and took a linen cloth, and put it down on the platform there; then he turned to the executioner and said, "I am ready." And he bowed over, the executioner was holding the sword, and with one hit with the sword his head was severed from his body; they left the body lying there until night, when no interference was made with Christians coming and taking the body; and they carried it in a procession with candlelight to the Christian cemetery where they buried him. Thus the death of Cyprian deprived the church of one of the great leaders; but his death at this time did not do a tenth of the harm it would have done if he'd been killed in the Decian persecution; because he had had the opportunity to do so much good during that period. And at the same time now, it was a witness to all the world, that unflinchingly he was ready to give up everything he had, when just a pinch of incense would have saved his life and given him a place of honor among the pagans.
He was ready to suffer for the cause of Christ; and when the persecution ended a year or two after, there were great numbers who flocked into the church; and the blood of the martyrs truly became the seed of the church, as in the phrase Tertullian had invented fifty years before.
In Rome there was no leader of the stature of Cyprian at this time. But the position of Bishop of Rome was a far more dangerous position than that of the Bishop of Carthage; because in Rome, a city of well over a million people, the presence of say 50,000 Christians constituted a group right in the center of the capital which an Emperor might think of as a great potential danger. And someone made the statement that Decius considered selection of a new Bishop of Rome as a greater menace to himself than the stepping forward of a genera1 claiming to be the Emperor against him.
I believe during these ten years, there were four bishops of Rome who were martyred. It was a very, very dangerous position. It was sometimes two or three years when they did not elect a bishop, because the Roman Empire was just determined to destroy the Bishop of Rome. The Bishop of Carthage was not in quite as prominent position as this; it was a province off to the side; the orders came from Rome; and in Carthage by this time, though the great bulk was still pagan, the general attitude had become one of respect for the Christians; and it was becoming more so in Rome than it had been before.
So much then for the account of this very great man—a great Christian leader; he was a man of important influence in many ways in the development of the early church. We call it early, but it still was well over 200 years after the death of Christ. The Church has already gone on a long time. From our viewpoint, you might say it's a very primitive church; but from their time, it's further back to the death of Christ than the Declaration of Independence is from now; that's the early church. The United States is just an infant in arms as far as a nation is concerned. Many people think that anything in the early church shows what we ought to do. Well, that's true, I'd say, if it's the church of the first fifty years. We know nothing of the church in the first fifty years, except what's in the book of Acts. And by this time, all sorts of changes have taken place. But Cyprian was a man of great abilities, a true Christian, a man who had a tremendous influence upon his day and his influence has remained in many ways to this day.
And
yet, strangely, it is my impression that of all the leaders of the early
church, of all the great leaders he was certainly one of the top dozen; yet he
is perhaps the least known. I confess that though I had Church History in
Seminary, when I began to teach Church History, if somebody had asked me the
first day who Cyprian was, I don't believe I could have told them. And each
time I've gone over the material, I've been more impressed with his importance
as an individual in the early days of the development of the Christian Church.
But now we go on to something of quite a different type.
G. Mythraism and
Manichaeanism.
I was tempted to call this "Three Great Enemies of Christianity in the 3rd
Century." Sometimes we call it Manichaeism, sometimes Manichaeanism, which
is perhaps more correct.
1. Mythraism. The Christian Church during the 1st and 2nd centuries was a very small movement, little known by this pagan world. Little-known and most people didn't recognize it as a great danger to other movements. But by the third century, while still very, very far from a majority, perhaps not over a fifth of the people, yet it was a very substantial movement, and one which people recognized as a force to be reckoned with. And in this century we find three other forces coming up to great prominence; and an educated, objective-minded pagan in those days, not connected with any one of these, might have great difficulty deciding which of them would most likely survive. Strangely, one of the most active and powerful of these—Mythraism—is largely forgotten today. It will not be necessary for me to say much about it. It is necessary that we be aware of it at least, because it was a very powerful movement in its day. Now Mythraism is the worship which is built around the god Mythras; and Mythras is a very old god; that is to say in early Persian mythology, and early Hindu mythology, there is reference to a Mythra; so it is thought by scholars, that it must date back before the Persians and Indians divided, that there was a belief in this god Mythras.
Well, Mythras—particularly among the Persians—was quite a powerful deity, connected up with the Sun to quite an extent. He eventually came to be identified with the Sun. And when the Roman soldiers went to Persia before the time of Christ, there were a few of them who were converted to the worship of Mythras and brought it back with them to Rome. Mythraism never had much success in Greece; it was never known to any great extent in Greece. But from Persia it was brought back to Rome, particularly about 200 AD, though we have traces of it before that time. But between 200 AD and 300 or 350 AD, it was an increasing force in the Roman Empire. And there have been found remains of—I believe—fifty different shrines in Rome from that period, which have been excavated within the last two or three centuries, showing that there were many centers in Rome of the worship of Mythras. It was particularly common in the outskirts of the Roman Empire, where there were large garrisons, because the Mythras religion was particularly the soldier's religion. It was a religion of virility; in fact, there's no place in the Mythras religion, as far as we know, for women at all. It is a religion of men. It is a religion of soldiers. It is a religion which stressed the soldierly virtues: which stressed courage, which stressed honesty, which stressed honor; it had many ethical points to recommend it.
In
Britain, where there were Roman garrisons, there have been found Temples to
Mythras, from this century, which have been found there in recent times. When
the barbarians flooded in—in the last part of the 3rd century—into the
territory that is now Romania, it was a great blow to Mythraism because there
were so many centers of Mythraism in that area. It was a religion which was
growing rapidly during this century—during this century growing faster than
Christianity was—but at the beginning of the century Christianity was way ahead
of it. And many would have thought that it was the wave of the future. Today
it's practically completely forgotten; it is hard to realize that for a period
of centuries it was such a rapidly growing movement at that time. Now we will
go on to mention
2. Manichaeanism. And this I mention second because it began later than Mythraism; but Manichaeanism, though it began later than Mythraism, continued later; there are traces of it found as late as the 12th century AD. It was a movement which, like Mythraism, began in Persia. But it was not an ancient movement in Persia. Mani, the founder of Manichaeanism, was a man of great ability, who lived in Persia about the middle of the 2nd Christian century; so you see it is a comparatively late religion.
Mani, a Persian, studied the Persian religion, but he came in contact with gnostic ideas; and he traveled into the Roman Empire; he had contact with various teachings of various lands, and he built it together into a system which is, you might say, the logical development of the gnostic views of the 2nd century AD. Manichaeanism can be said to be the climax of Gnosticism.
It was around the middle of the 3rd century that Mani was killed in Persia by the Emperor. The Persian Emperor had Mani crucified; and then he took his skin off from his body—flayed his body—he was subjected to the most terrible torture; and his body was desecrated; and the persecution of his followers by the Persian Emperor was very intense.
But his beliefs had spread beyond the Persian Empire; and they spread rapidly at this time, through the Roman Empire; and all the various gnostic movements, the followers of Marcion and of Simon Magus, and the gnostic movement in the Roman Empire, recognized Manichaeanism as being a related movement. The gnostic movements were individual groups following a teacher with a certain system of ideas. But Mani developed not only a system of ideas very similar to the gnostics, but also an organization; and that is one reason why his system lasted to some extent until the 12th century AD in western Europe, while the other gnostic movements pretty well died out by the end of the 3rd century, most of them by the end of the 2nd.
Mani had a system with twelve apostles; and these apostles had the leadership; and then other people under them; and they had a definite, worked-out system of organization; they had ceremonies for initiation into their movement, and they had the advanced secrets that were not supposed to be told to anyone till he had gone through the various stages of development in the organization.
They claimed to have the true understanding of life; and their understanding was that matter is evil, and what we want to do is to get away from that. This was the gnostic idea; we want to get away from matter; Satan was the creator of this world; he had done a wicked thing in creating the world. Cain and Abel were not the children of Adam and Eve, but of Satan; and Satan was the force of evil, whom we must oppose. We must oppose all matter; everything connected with Satan or with matter. So there was much asceticism in the teaching of the Manichaeans; much was taken over from the gnostics; and they had secret ceremonies which only the initiated could take up; advanced teaching which those who had proceeded a certain distance in the religion could go into. As late as 400 AD—slightly before—we find St. Augustine, before he became a Christian, to be tremendously attracted by the Manichaeanism; he considering joining them—this powerful, widespread Manichaean Movement. It lasted much longer than Mythraism; it was a very great enemy of Christianity. Of course, it very strongly denied the incarnation; it was blasphemy to think that God—the great and good God—would be coming and mating with matter which is evil, an incarnation which according to gnostic views...
[student: Does it have any relationship to Rosicrucianism?] Actually, all we know about Manichaeanism today is from the writings of its opponents; and we have certain Chinese writings—it had spread as far as China—we have certain Chinese writings by some of its adherents which have been found. We have a few of the Manichaean statements of their beliefs, which have been found very recently; but most we know about it is from its enemies. Now the Rosicrucians would say that they have the original wisdom of the pyramids going back—passed on secretly down through the ages—and most of the great men in American history were great because they were Rosicrucians; but that is, as far as I know, pure imagination. But whether there is a tie-up somewhere between Manichaeanism and Rosicrucianism, it would be very hard for anybody to prove; there might be and there might not. It takes the central teachings of the various gnostic groups and they are its central attitude; and they are organized into a more definite system at this time.
[student: how did they view Jesus?] Well they might hold that God pretended to be a man, looked like a man, but wasn't a real man. It would be such a thing as God assuming human form, but not actually taking matter on, not actually assuming a body; they denied any virtue in the death of Christ, but they did honor Christ greatly—or Jesus, they called him.
Aspects of their ideas about matter would be somewhat similar to the view of the Eddyists, or Christian Science; but in other ways they would not be like them. The Rosicrucians are a group which may be somewhat like them; but the Rosicrucians, like the Manichaeans, claimed to have their inner secrets that only the initiated can know; and therefore unless you've been initiated into both of them you just can't compare them; and we haven't been initiated into the Rosicrucians, and we couldn't be in the Manichaeans, so we can't compare them. But that there's that similarity; there are many points of similarity, but I don't think there's any group today that's really altogether like them.
Dr. Machen, in his book, The Origin of Paul's Religion, has gone into it quite fully; and he has done an excellent job of showing that the bulk of the evidence would point in the direction of their having been in many ways copies of Christianity, rather than vice versa. But the evidence is insufficient to prove it. In the end, if we believe that Christ is the Lord and Savior; believe that the Bible is true; we find nothing in these claims today to be a strong evidence against this belief. But we could not simply, on a historical ground, prove the contrary, because the evidence is just not there. But there's a great deal written very, very dogmatically, stating that Christianity has taken things over from these religions, which simply is not true.
I was in a class at the University of Pennsylvania, reading Babylonian documents; there was a young Jewish fellow—from quite an orthodox background—and myself, in the class; we were the whole class. And this noted professor—this was about 35 years ago—directing the reading of this document; and we read about Gilgamesh, the old Babylonian leader; and it said in the beginning of the text, he was two-thirds man and one-third god. And the professor, who had been a Quaker, and was then an ordained minister in the Episcopal church, said, "That's where they get the idea for god-man, its genesis, from Gilgamesh—two-thirds god and one-third man.
And I remember this Jewish fellow looked so interested—so tremendously impressed to know where Christianity really did come from. And there was a professor Jensen in Germany, a very noted professor of Baylonian forty years ago, who wrote a book on the Gilgamesh epic in world literature [Prof. Peter Christian Albrecht Jensen, Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, (1906)-dcb], and he ended up his book with the statement something like this—it's a book of a thousand pages, and it ends up with the words that the one whom Christians worship in great cathedrals and in little shanties, in meeting houses and temples of all sorts, this one is no other than the development of the old Babylonian Gilgamesh, and that was the claim that many make, but there's absolutely no evidence.
Personally, to my mind, it's utterly silly to think that the idea that one is two-thirds god and one third man has anything to do with the idea of one who was a god-man, with a human mother and true human ancestors and an incarnation of the Lord. But when you look for verbal similarities, you can find them everywhere. And once you get in that frame of mind, you can develop most anything. There is such a thing as one system being tremendously affected by another, and drawing from it; but we have to have proof, not just ifs, too many of these are dogmatic statements without proof—and I don't think we can expect to prove the contrary; but if we can know the material to the point where, when somebody comes up with a strong train of something like this, we can point out one or two weaknesses, points in the material where we have absolute evidence of the weakness of the particular point, often you can shake a person's faith in what they've been given, and make them open to hearing something more about the truth.
[student: Did the Persian Zoroastrians persecute the Manichaeans?] Yes, the Zoroastrians persecuted them; they considered them as heretics and killed them and tortured them, were very much opposed to them; but it doubtless was related to Zoroastrianism; it took many ideas from it, but added to them these gnostic ideas; it made the changes, which Zoroastrians considered, as they said, as corrupting the true teaching of Zoroastrianism; and it was for this reason that they were terribly persecuted. If you say that the fact that the system can stand persecution proves it's true, you'd better go slow about giving that as a complete truth; because the Manichaeans withstood the most terrible persecution from the Persians. And then in the Roman Empire many of them were persecuted to quite an extent; and then when the Roman Church got to be quite powerful, they persecuted the Manichaeans and still they survived, quite a few of them, until as late as the 12th and 13th century AD, when thousands of them were killed in the persecutions. So the proof that something is true is if it is in accordance with the Word of God; not, are people willing to die for it? The fact that people are willing die for it may bring converts to it, but not prove its truth.
So much then for this very brief introduction to the two great enemies of the Christian Church. They were movements.
The
third group we look at was not so much a movement as a system of thought; but
the third has continued to this day. It's had its ups and downs in between. The
third we will call
H. Neo-Platonism. And Neo-Platonism was a movement of thought which came to the fore also during this 3rd century; it was not an organized group like the Manichaeans; it was not an oriental sect like the Mythraists; but it was something which claimed to be derived from the philosophers of ancient Greece, but tremendously changed from them; and this Neo-Platonism was a system of thought which the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on it claimed was eventually adopted into the Christian Church; and although it had utterly repudiated the central ideas of Christianity—such as the incarnation and atonement—the Encyclopaedia Britannica claims that its other ideas were taken into the Christian Church and became largely dominant in it.
Now I'm not saying that I believe that is true, but it's interesting that that can be found in the latest edition, or next to latest, of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, such a strong statement as that. And I found one article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on its greatest leader, in which he is praised almost as if he is the greatest man who ever lived; and in another article on Neo-Platonism in general, it is branded as a mixture of contradictory elements doomed to failure by its very irrational type of thought; and to find these two articles there in the recent appraisal of it shows how it is a real force today—Neo-Platonism.
So it is well that we know something about Neo-Platonism, though again we cannot take the time to go into it fully. Its greatest leader was a man named Plotinus; and the Great Books series published by the University of Chicago has the whole volume of Plotinus' Enneads included as one of the great books of the Western World. And my brother-in-law has been working on the Greek of a section of Plotinus for a thesis for the University of Pennsylvania for the last 10 years. Every year I've thought he finished his work and would get his Ph.D. the next year. He may this year, I don't know. But he's still working at it, and has been all this time on the study of Plotinus. But you see it is a limited thing.
Plotinus
was translated into Arabic and—through the middle ages—people in Arabia and
Syria studied Plotinus and referred to him as the Master; and Neo-Platonism
went through the Mohammedan world and came up into Spain, and it exerted
influence again in the Christian world. So you see it has been an important
force in Christian history, although never quite so important as it was in the
third and in the fourth century; and one time in the fourth century, it looked
as if Neo-Platonism was utterly destroying Christianity, when one of its men
became Emperor; he set about, consciously and definitely, to bring an end to
the whole influence of Christianity.
1. Its Background. There are two elements in it. One element in Neo-Platonism is the philosophy of ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle, particularly Plato. But another element, which is perhaps just as important in it, is a desire to hold to the old pagan religion, while re-interpreting it; you might call it a sort of modernistic paganism. That is to say, they took their myths, the old pagan gods, and tried to make out that these are really presentations of great virtues. And they tried to present Christian virtues under the claim that these were derived from the old pagan gods; they tried to hold to the old mythology, but to re-interpret it.
But there's this about the Neo-Platonists: they were not altogether partial to the pagan religion; they were ready to take any religion and re-interpret it. I've seen that tendency even in the modern times. One time I was in Germany having dinner—when I was a student there one evening—with a young fellow from India and a young fellow from Persia; they belonged to different religions and hated each other because of their different religious backgrounds. But we got to talking about what they really believed, and we found that both of them had soaked up German rationalism to the point where they both were thorough-going German rationalistic modernists. Only one of them interpreted it in the terms of his particular heathen religion and the other in the terms of his particular religion. But their view was absolutely identical, when you found what it was.
Now that is the Neo-Platonist attitude toward most religions. They were ready to recognize Jesus as a great teacher; and they were ready to use some of the Old Testament stories as myths and legends to illustrate ethical principles. But they were somewhat similar to the Gnostics in their attitude toward matter. They could not believe in the incarnation because they could not believe that God would tie Himself up with matter. Such a belief to them was absolutely impossible. We'll look at a few of the great leaders and see a little of their influence next Monday.
Now we were speaking last time about H, Neo-Platonism; and Neo-Platonism is a difficult matter to make clear. In fact I was talking yesterday with a brother-in law of mine who has for ten years been working on a PhD thesis on perhaps the leading of all the Neo-Platonists. And he said that it is impossible to prove whether the leading Neo-Platonists follow Plato or completely misunderstood Plato. Authorities today differ. Whether what they were giving was a new form of Plato's views or something entirely different, that they utterly misunderstood Plato. It is very difficult to understand exactly what Neo-Platonism is in full. But this is important for us as studying not philosophy, but history; it is important to recognize that it was a very important force in the latter part of ancient church history; and it is an influence which has had considerable importance since that time also, whether one really understands it or not.
Now it's interesting in the Encyclopaedia Britannica to find an article about Plotinus—don't bother with the name now, we'll have a separate heading about him—but he is probably the greatest of all the Neo-Platonists; we find an article about him which lauds him to the skies and also makes him appear to be the greatest philosopher, the most influential one that almost ever lived; and at the same time we find in that same encyclopedia an article on Neo-Platonism which speaks of Neo-Platonism as folly from its own absurdity; and the article on Neo-Platonism has a very interesting contradiction in it—that is, a conflict rather—it says that Neo-Platonism, judged from the standpoint of empirical science and philosophy, passed its meridian in Plato and Aristotle, declined in the post-Aristotelian system, and set in the darkness of Neo-Platonism. It says, but from the religious and moral point of view it must be admitted that the ethical mood which Neo-Platonism endeavored to create and maintain is the highest and purest ever reached by antiquity. That's quite a compliment, isn't it? And that is what the article here in the Encyclopaedia Britannica says in summarizing it at the start. It was a very important influence and a very extensive influence in the latter part of ancient church history.
Now as to how great an extent it was, of course, influenced by Christianity and affected by it is hard to know. Because very often the greatest enemy of a movement is something that is very similar, that perhaps is without its most important feature, but that imitates it from many of the features from which its strength comes. I have a book here by a professor of fifty years ago in the University of Chicago, who says the struggle of Neo-Platonism with Christianity was brilliant and pathetic. But it represented the exhaustion of the ancient world, and its problems remained unsolved.
Neo-Platonism represents certainly an attempt to make philosophy a guide of life, there's no question of that. It is an attempt to make philosophy the guide of life, and to make deductive thinking the greatest thing in the universe. It tries to exalt the understanding of thought forms, principles and ideals and that sort of thing, to the point where the physical becomes comparatively unimportant; but yet it doesn't take the gnostic and Manichaean attitude that matter is in itself evil. It has something of the attitude of Manichaeanism but without a definite antagonism to matter. It makes matter subordinate. The important thing is great principles, which it claims to derive from speculation about the universe; it is to some extent Monotheistic in that it talks about God and his relation; we have come from God and our ideal is to go back to God, and to sink ourselves into nothingness in the Godhead. And that is the desire, the ideal; but it finds expression of its ideals in every religion; and whatever religion is near, it can take its myths and legends and use them as containers for its own ethical ideas and its own philosophical ideas.
Some
of the Neo-Platonists tried to do that with Christianity; but at the time of
which we are speaking, most of them devoted themselves to the pagan religion,
and tried to explain all of their myths in such a way that you could carry them
into great, beautiful philosophical ideas.
2. Ammoniacus
Saccas.
For the little I'm going to say about him, it's a very involved name to give.
Ammoniacus, sometimes is given in the briefer form of Ammonias; and the second
name, Saccas. Ammoniacus Saccas was a man who is said to have been born in
Athens; we're not sure about that, but he spent most of his life in Alexandria,
and during the years following 200 AD he was teaching in Alexandria. He had
quite a following there; he was considered as a very prominent philosophical
leader; he did not wish his views to be widely disseminated. He felt that they
were too advanced for the common run of people to understand; he wanted his
people to keep them to themselves and advance in their understanding, and to
help one another—those who really could understand—but not to give them to the
knowledge of the general mass of people; and we have no writings left of his;
we have nothing left that he wrote and no accounts, to speak of, of what his
views were; but we know about some of those who were influenced by him. We know
of him—for one thing—because Origen tells us that he attended the lectures of
Saccas; that he went to the lectures in order to get the view of the pagan and
understand it in order to refute its errors. And he considered this teacher as
of sufficient importance and sufficient brilliance that it was worth his time
to go and attend his lectures. But we know more particularly, because the man
who had most influence of all the Neo-Platonists said himself that he secured
his viewpoint from this teacher in Egypt. So we'll go on to him,
3. Plotinus. Now Plotinus is thought of as being of sufficient importance that the series that the Encyclopaedia Britannica has issued, the Great Books, devotes a whole volume to the writings of Plotinus. His writings have been studied ever since the time of Plotinus, and his views have had a great deal of influence. His name is one you can remember, Plotinus. He would seem to have lived from 205 to 270; but his principal disciple, who wrote his biography, said that Plotinus seemed to be ashamed of being in a body, and hence he refused to tell anything about his parents, his ancestry or his country.
It is generally thought that he was an Egyptian, but we cannot prove it. We do know that he was in Egypt, and that he studied under Ammonias Saccas; that the first time that a friend took him to hear this man, he exclaimed to his friend, "That is the man I have been seeking for!" And then for 11 years he studied there in Alexandria under Saccas; and at the age of 39 he left, determined to get direct knowledge of the philosophy practiced among the Persians and honored among the Indians. So he traveled with the Roman Army over to Persia; but the Emperor was assassinated, and Plotinus with difficulty escaped and got back to Rome; and in Rome he set up his school; and there for 25 years he was the leader of a school in Rome which was attended by many highly intellectual people. Professional philosophers, several physicians, senators, popes, a banker, and many distinguished women attended his school. One senator said that, as a result of his associating with Plotinus, he reached such a state of detachment that he abandoned all his goods, dismissed his servants, gave up all his offices. The emperor Gallienus—you haven't mentioned this in your paper about Gallienus just now because I hadn't yet told it about it—but Gallienus and his wife held Plotinus in very great esteem, and often studied philosophy with him.
Plotinus, during his first ten years, refused to commit any of his teachings to writing. He had taken a pledge not to reveal any of the teachings of his teachers; they were to be kept just among the elect, those who studied carefully and got into the deeper things of it; but he found that others were talking about these teachings, and so he began to write, and he wrote 54 treatises. He didn't pay much attention to his style, and wasn't very interested in the writing; he was more interested in his teaching; and he produced the greater part of these—in fact 30 of the 54—during his last six years. But these writings which he wrote doubtless summarized pretty well what he taught; but he did not work over them carefully to make sure they expressed exactly what he meant; and scholars have debated ever since what they really did mean. And today there are several in this world giving a great part of their time trying to decide exactly what Plotinus meant by what he wrote. After Plotinus' death, his disciple Porphyry wrote a life of Plotinus; and he took his 54 treatises and he arranged them, and put them in 6 groups of nine; and since there were nine in each group he called these the Enneads [ennea is Greek for nine]. So the Enneads, the Six Enneads, is the title given to Plotinus' 54 treatises, which Porphyry arranged in order to publish subjects about the nature of the soul, the kinds of being, the meaning of providence, the relation of soul to the body, and so on. He called them the Enneads, the Six Enneads.
Well, these Enneads were written and were studied in the later Roman Empire. During the middle ages they were pretty well forgotten in the Western World, though many of the teachings going through different hands were still effective and important in the middle ages. His actual writings had little influence then in the Western World until modern times, when they have been translated and disseminated. I understand there is a new edition just being prepared in Paris now of this. But these writings were translated into Syriac and then into Arabic, and the Arabic philosophers in the middle ages studied them a considerable amount, and always referred to Plotinus as the Master. But they had a connection with Mohammedan philosophy through the middle ages.
They
have been, you see, very influential, though they are quite vague and difficult
to understand at many points. But for those who like to think that by their own
human reasoning and speculation they can arrive at higher satisfaction and
understanding of the universe, the speculative method instead of by the hard
method of scientific experimentation or by the Christian method of getting the
revelation from God, they have found great inspiration in the writings of
Plotinus and in the whole Neo-Platonist approach. There are Arabic writings
which quote extensively from it, written in the middle ages, which refer to him
as The Master. I don't suppose they even knew where he lived; they knew the
writings and they valued them very highly. Now we go on to
4. Porphyry. Porphyry was the disciple of Plotinus who was so interested in making Plotinus' work available and in telling about the life of Plotinus. But in Porphyry the opposition to Christianity comes more to the fore; and Porphyry devoted a great deal of effort to direct attack upon Christianity. We do not find Plotinus much recognizing the existence of Christianity—though he is presenting another system—a system which probably has actually borrowed much from Christianity. But Porphyry wrote, in addition to his writings about Plotinus, he wrote extensively against Christianity. These works of his against Christianity, the Christian monks did not feel it important to copy through the middle ages, and they have disappeared. We do not have his writings any more than we have those of Celsus 150 years earlier; but we have elaborate answers to his writings, and from them we can tell a great deal about what is in his writings.
He distinguished the original pure doctrine of Jesus from the second-handed adulterated doctrine of the apostles. Jesus, in his opinion, was a great teacher, a man who had beautiful ideas, and it was very lovely to follow; but when the Christians considered Jesus God, that of course he considered absolutely wrong and harmful. He wrote very extensively on the book of Daniel, trying to show that Daniel was a fraud; that it did not describe predictions, but that it was written after they occurred, and described history after it occurred, pretending that it was a prediction.
You might say he's one of the very earliest of the higher critics; and his methods of attacking the Scripture have been followed by many in modern times. He was a very able man, and a very active opponent of Christianity. The Neo-Platonists continued for another two hundred years; they were very active in propagating their beliefs, and very constantly on the watch for means to injure Christianity. Porphyry's view is that Jesus was a fine man, he was a good teacher; and his teachings about not being concerned about material things are very excellent; but the idea of thinking of him as a saint or a god, according to him, is superstition and mythology. It's just about like the old-fashioned liberalism of today, which is very similar on this point to the Neo-Platonism.
Well, this does not complete Neo-Platonism, because it had much influence after this time; but we have not completed Manichaeanism either; it continues, but I'm not going to anticipate and go on to succeeding centuries, merely wishing to summarize them and to refer to them a number of times in the course of the next month, where we have important aspects of it entering.
I want to take a minute to answer three or four questions on your sheets—rather interesting questions. Here is a question saying, "Why do we know so little of Cyprian if he was so important?" That is a good question, but I have to interpret it. There are two possible interpretations; one would be, "Why is so little known about this? And that would not be true; a great deal is known about it. We have many of his letters; we have a great deal of information; probably as much as about any individual—any Christian—between the time of the apostles and 300 AD. But what I meant to say was that the Christian world today as a whole—at least our evangelical churches—know very little about Cyprian. And I think that the fact is that we don't know much about many of these early Christian leaders. Cyprian is not unique in that regard, at all. But his influence helped to build the Roman Church; consequently the evangelicals and Protestants as a whole aren't so much interested in him.
On the other hand, his influence helped to build the Roman Church; if you study it carefully, it definitely denies the Papal claims that the Bishop of Rome had any superiority over any other bishops. Well, when you get into it a little, you find these things out. But there are a few men—like there was an English Anglican Archbishop who devoted his life to the study of Cyprian—wrote a very valuable book about him; there are individuals who study him greatly, but he's not the sort of figure like the early martyrs who give good illustrations for our sermons. Cyprian held very strongly to what we hold, and I don't think he ever bowed to anybody else's authority, except when he was convinced they were right.
But Cyprian held that the bishop has a place of supremacy in the church; and that all the bishops together are one unit; that the church is a unit; and among these units, the Bishop of Rome has the place of honor, as the Bishop of the leading city in the Empire, and the successor of Peter and Paul. His authority was in Rome, but not anywhere else except in Rome. There's no evidence that he ever gave any recognition to any other bishop as having authority over Carthage—Cyprian, that is—but he held that the bishop had the authority in the church of which he was bishop; and that all the bishops together made one unit; and the leading one is the Bishop of Rome, but it is a leadership of honor, not of authority; that was Cyprian's view. And if somebody interpreted it as authority, we have his letters to the Bishop of Rome, in which he so strongly rebukes him for not requiring strictness that time. In the end, the Bishop of Rome's views won out, but not in Cyprian's lifetime. I'm glad we had an opportunity to make it clearer, because this is quite important.
And then here's a very good question: "How could Novatus, who opposed Cyprian's strictness, go in with Novatian, who was even stricter in his attitude toward the lapsed?" Half of you got to discuss that in your papers today; but the answer to that, "how could he?" is, if I knew I would be able to understand the attitude of many people with which I have had close relationships at different times. In other words, human beings are not consistent; and you will find—I have found this—whenever I see a man who thinks that some other man has got the last word on everything; and whatever that man says, that's just exactly right; whenever I see somebody like that, I say, "Just let's watch that man twenty years from now, and see if he won't think that that other man was 100% wrong on everything that he ever held." Because I find that most men who follow another man 100% turn around and are 100% against him later. It is a human fallacy, a fault, to be inconsistent. And I personally feel that we should recognize that all are sinners; and all have their errors; and find how much there is of Christ in another individual, and follow that. And the man who follows critically is one I have far more confidence in; I'm far more apt to think he'll keep on following, because he's thought it through himself; and he really knows what he's doing; than the man who is just blindly following someone else's ideas, or somebody's attitudes.
But I have known at least 20 people—and I don't mean following any other one individual—I know of quite a number of individuals; I guess it wouldn't hurt to mention a specific instance; Dr. Chafer, of Dallas. Dr. Chafer, during his lifetime, had many students who almost worshipped the ground he stood on; and anything he said was just about the last word on everything. I have known at least five individuals who left that seminary, thinking Dr. Chafer was just the last word on everything; and ten years later they were against anything whatever it could be proven that Dr. Chafer had stood for. They went from the one extreme—which was the wrong attitude toward any man—to the exact opposite extreme—which was 100 times worse—because Dr. Chafer, while he made his errors as every human being does, the great bulk of his teaching was very excellent, and very Christian, and very fine.
And I've known individuals I could name who've done exactly that—in relation to him—and I've known a good many others too, and I'm just afraid when anybody takes an attitude of extremely thorough-going loyalty to another individual's ideas, or leadership. It's human to be inconsistent. That's human. People swing and they swing widely. And if Novatus, taking a strong attitude against Cyprian's strictness, had gone up to Rome and stood strongly for the Bishop of Rome, we would say, "Well, probably Novatus has thought to himself this is the thing he thought was right," but when we find him swinging to the opposite extreme up there, we don't say he was insincere.
Many a man does it in perfect sincerity. He may have been insincere, but we have no proof of that. But it does look as if the underlying motive was a desire for his own advantage; against the leadership whatever it was; and I've known people like that; I've known excellent teachers who've been very helpful influences in many ways; but they have something in them, that makes them just pick out some little point wherever they are; and they become so indignant at it, that it makes it pretty soon hard for them to get along; and then they'll go to some other place that holds a very different view; and they'll be very happy here too; and then they get some little point there... Novatus was probably that way. Novatus in Carthage criticized Cyprian for being strict, and he organized a group that said Cyprian was too strict and opposed him. Then when he moved to Rome, and he found that the Bishop of Rome was under criticism because he was not strict enough; he joined with the criticizers there, and it is said that he urged Novatian to start the new church. Now we can't prove he did. Novatian seems to have been a thoroughly good man; but all the evidence is that Novatian did not want to pull out on that particular issue, but that he would listen.
Novatian wrote a number of very excellent theological writings; he was a very high class writer. The only thing I've ever read against him is that he was a very stern, gloomy fellow who was very strict on the law. Nobody has ever accused him of anything else that I've found.
I
think that covers the time we'll take for questions.
J. Forty Years of Freedom from Persecution. We spent a good bit of time talking about the ten years of persecution under Decius and Valerian. We've spoken a good deal about the previous fifty years because of the great men there were then—the end of Tertullian's life, the activity of Origen, and the activity of Cyprian. They were years that we had a good bit to speak about.
Now we have a period of forty years concerning which we do not have a great deal to say. We have very few important writers—hardly any during this period. We have no great leaders like Cyprian that are known during this period. Perhaps it is partly due to the fact that Decius and Valerian killed so many of the leaders. They had definitely set out to destroy the leadership of the church, and it may be that the first-class men, of whom we would have known during this period, had been killed during the persecution. There are hardly any names that really stand out during these 40 years; but 40 years is a sizeable length of time. It is practically a whole generation of life, and we should be aware of the fact that during this time from Gallienus' accession, when he made his edict of toleration, up to the beginning of the next century, there was practically no persecution.
Now
I don't say that it was a period when there was no persecution; there were
doubtless instances where the pagans mistreated Christians; in the army there
were many Christians, and the army often had to take part in pagan ceremonies;
and occasionally the Christian who refused to do so might be set upon by his fellow
soldiers and mistreated, or even might be considered by his officer to be
disobedient and be killed—not theoretically for being a Christian—but for being
disobedient and refusing to carry out orders. There were doubtless occasional
martyrs during this period, but any definite program of persecution on the part
of the state was not done; and there was this edict of Gallienus who recognized
Christianity as a permitted religion, having its right to exist.
1. Growth of the Church. There was ten years of growth in two waves, at the beginning and end of it; there was heavy persecution between 250 and 260; at the beginning of that persecution, great numbers of people had left the church; but now the persecution had ended, the people were glorifying the martyrs; the other people were admiring the way other Christians had stood up and faced the tortures, and suffered through it; and there came a terrible pestilence and many calamities in the reign of Gallienus at that time; and the Christians had done so much for other people, that the result was that it led many people toward Christianity; and while Mythraism was growing and active during this period, Manichaeanism just beginning to grow at this period; but Mythraism was very active, and Neo-Platonism very active, particularly among the educated classes; great numbers of people were joining the Christian church during this period.
It is possible, even, that by 300 as many as one-fifth of the people of the empire may have been Christians; perhaps not that many, certainly at least a tenth of the people of the Empire had become Christians in the course of the nearly 300 years since the death of Christ, by the end of the period. And a great part of that number had become Christians during this period of forty years. Since Christianity was a permitted religion now, people were allowed to build churches; previously they mostly met in homes, in small halls, or out in the country, or sometimes even in cemeteries. It was hard to meet in the cemeteries, because the rooms in the cemeteries were underground caverns in which the dead were buried; and it was hard to find any room large enough for a large meeting; but sometimes meetings were held in the catacombs, though that was not the purpose of the catacombs.
[student: Did the public accept Christians?] Well, it varied. It was much more fashionable than it had ever been before. There were sections where people were looked down upon for being Christians; there were other areas in which they doubtless were looked up to. And a great mixed multitude came into the church; but with this mixed multitude, there were many very real Christians too; there's no question of that. But it was a time of great growth on the part of the church; and a time of the building of many church buildings. And at the end of the century in Nicomedia—in Asia Minor—which was Diocletian's capital, where he had his great palace; there was a larger building even than Diocletian's palace, and a building which stood up higher than the palace; and this building was the church, the leading church, of Nicomedia. It was a very large and splendid building in which great multitudes came together for the services, a building very beautifully built.
There
were very fine churches in many parts of the Empire, by 300 AD. It was a time
then of growth in material things, growth in building. As to whether it was—to
any great extent—a time of spiritual growth, we are lacking in evidence; we
have no great writings from this period; we have no one at the time writing a
history; we have histories written later, looking back to it, but not one right
at that time; and there doubtless were many real Christians among them;
doubtless many who were not real Christians, but I want practically to mention
2. Worldliness. It was a period
in which, as in practically every period when there has not been persecution,
worldliness comes into the church. It was a period when there was worldliness;
there was a certain amount of heresy, undoubtedly, but we have no evidence of
many great strong heretical movements like we've had in earlier periods. But
some of those movements were still exerting their influence. And under this, we
should mention a man who was the bishop of the church in the 2nd most important
city in the Empire. That was the city of Antioch. This man's name was Paul.
3. Paul of Samosata. He is called Paul of Samosata, which is the name of the place from which he came. They didn't have last names then, so very often they named people after the town where they had formerly lived. There are many Pauls of this period, so he is called Paul of Samosata. He was for a number of years the bishop of the church in the second largest city of the Empire, the city of Antioch. And Paul settled into heresy. He held a form of Monarchianism which he taught; and on account of his heretical views, there were three assemblies held in Antioch of bishops from the whole area between 264 and 269; three different synods of bishops were held to examine the question of Paul's Gospel soundness. And he explained to them his views; he believed that God is one, God the Father, God the Son, he said are the same identical nature; there's only one God. God is one, Jesus Christ was a mere man in whom God dwelt. Jesus or Christ, while on earth, progressed toward the attainment of divinity.
Now these views which Paul held resulted in the bishops holding these three meetings at which they examined these views; and at the third of these synods they declared that his view was heretical; that he should not be a bishop in the catholic church; that he should leave the fine buildings of the church in Antioch; turn over his property and the congregation to sound Christian teaching. That was what the bishops decided; and in what they said about him, the bishops did not stop with criticizing his heretical views, though that was the ground of his being ordered to be defrocked from the bishopric.
But they said that in his preaching, he had a theatrical and affected style; that he tried to make a show of his preaching. They said that he had a group of men hired, who would sit in the congregation and clap at his high points of oratory. They said that he always had crowds of servants who went with him everywhere, and made him seem to be a very great man. They said that he had a position in the government, and that he was doing that along with his church work, and receiving a very high salary for it; and the criticisms they made of him were difficult for us to think of a bishop of the early church being like that; but realize that though this is the early church, it is 250 years after the time of Christ; and probably it was very unusual for a bishop to be like this; but here was one of these men who had condemned him made these statements, saying all these things were true of his life and of his activity; and they point out the great wealth which he had, which they say could not possibly have come from his salary—even though it was quite high—whether from the state or from the church.
And after the bishops voted to condemn Paul, and that he should be deposed from the bishopric, he kept right on preaching and having his great applause for another six years. And then, the emperor Aurelian, having settled certain matters in the East which had involved him in a very difficult war there; that having been settled, Aurelian came to Antioch, and petitions were presented to him by the church and by Paul's people, that he should either dispossess him from the church, or that he should declare his right to have it. And Aurelian was a sun-worshipper—a pagan—but as the Emperor, he was in charge of the preservation of law and order in the Empire; and Aurelian listened to these claims made by both sides; and he said, "I don't understand these ecclesiastical matters; we will ask the bishops of Italy to decide the matter."
Now you see how that would advance the growing power of the Roman church; but there was no recognition in this of any authority on the part of the Roman church; it was simply that Aurelian the Emperor, who had the power in material things, felt that he was not able to make a decision on a matter of this type; and the bishops of Italy are men who have a high standing in the church; they're well thought of; they should know what the church really stands for; and they're far enough away from here not to be mixed up perhaps in the emotional personal situation here; let them decide. And the bishops of Italy unanimously said that Paul was heretical in his views; and so Aurelius said, "Then he should be driven out of the bishopric here, and the church turned over to the man whom the bishops of Italy designated as the proper man to be bishop of this church."
So
Paul is interesting to us because of his showing us the fact that there were
some bishops at this time who had the type of worldly character that is
ascribed to him; as showing us how the Roman state recognized the right of the
church to exist at this time; and even decided a matter as to who holds the
property; as showing us also something of the spread of this heretical view,
though we don't know a great deal about it during this period. And I will just
briefly mention as, I think we'd better give Paul a number to himself,
4. Lucian. And Lucian is said to have been the most learned man of the age—that is at this end of the century. He took great interest in textual criticism; he issued an edition of the Septuagint, that is the Old Testament; some people think the so-called Syrian Recension which we have of the New Testament, from which our Textus Receptus was taken, was to quite an extent the work of Lucian, but that cannot be proven. But then he took great interest in the text of the Bible—we know—and he seems to have been associated with Paul of Samosata, and to have held some of his views. But Lucian was a martyr who was killed in 311 AD; and consequently he was recognized as a martyr, and whether his views were heretical at some places, that was forgotten, in the place given him as a martyr.
Neither Lucian nor Paul was of great importance in church history. But they are of some importance for showing the development during these forty years which leads us up to perhaps the most dramatic single period in all ancient church history. This period comes at the beginning of the fourth century. We look at it tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock.
Valerian and Gallienus were quite important characters. Novatus is not a very important character; there is considerable theorizing by ancient writers as to the influence he may have had in Carthage and in Rome; he was a troublemaker, probably that's all; he was not a man who stood for any great cause; he was not a writer of importance; he was not an official in the Church; if you forgot Novatus it will not be tremendously important, he's not nearly as important as Valerian or Gallienus. But Novatian is really important; he was fine writer; he was a man who stood the way Cyprian did; he was the founder of a church which spread through the Roman Empire and lasted for several centuries. Novatian is not a minor character—he is a very important man—and so it would be very important to know who Novatian was; he was not a North African, he was a Roman.
Novatian was an able writer; he was an orthodox Christian, one of the most orthodox of the century; the only criticism I've ever read of him was that he was a gloomy, stern sort of fellow. Well, that's the way enemies always talk about people who stand for the truth; but the fact is that he did not try to lead out a movement, he simply was opposing the policy of the man whom he recognized as a real Christian—who was the bishop; and others developed the movement; but it having been done, he led it and led it very effectively. He started a movement which lasted for many centuries. He was a Roman, an able theological writer, a leader in the Church of Rome, but a man who stood for the severe treatment of the lapsed. Novatian was made the leader—against his own will—of a group that came out from the church at Rome, and was what the Romanists call a schismatic church—that is it was a church which divided from the main body but not over any heresy. Neither side accused the other of any heresy. It was purely an administrative matter, but a very important matter, and on that there was started a separate church which lasted many centuries; and it was a church that stood for the fundamentals of the faith, but which was more severe in its discipline than the Catholic church.
Novatus was not a man who stood specifically for anything. When he was in Carthage he stood for mild treatment of the lapsed; when he was in Rome he stood for severe treatment. He made trouble for Cyprian; he made trouble for Cornelius. And we don't know a lot about him; he was not a writer; he was not a man of tremendous importance, but he had important things happen in both places, and they blame it on him.
Well, now Valerian and Gallienus are also very important. They're not nearly so important as Diocletian, whom we are now approaching, but they certainly are just as important as Decius. Yet Decius is far better known than they. Decius is known because after 30 years of practically no persecution he started persecution again; but the policy that Decius started Valerian carried on, after a period in which he did not persecute.
So you have in the middle of this century that severe persecution; then a period of about four years when Gallienus was reigning with no persecution; and then two or three years of severe persecution at the end of Valerian's reign; and Gallienus the son of Valerian who succeeded Valerian, when Valerian was taken prisoner by the Persians; they kept him as a prisoner for years and treated him with great indignity. According to one story, they finally killed him, took his skin and filled it with straw, and put it up on the gate where everybody could see how they had defeated the Romans. Whether that's true or not, we don't know, but he was taken prisoner and was held for a long time by the Persians. His son Gallienus said "Oh well, my father's gone, it's up to me to carry on." He was a very cynical sort of a fellow, and he didn't carry on his father's policies; and one of them he didn't carry on was the persecution, so we have a man who didn't amount to much as a character, but who nevertheless was a good man from the viewpoint of the advance of Christianity.
He stopped the persecution; and Gallienus did what no Roman Emperor had ever done before. He issued an edict recognizing Christianity as a permitted religion. Some before did not persecute, some did persecute, but Christianity was always considered illegal. And if a person was denounced, "This man is a Christian," even among the best and mildest of emperors, that man must be killed unless he denied it and sacrificed; but Gallienus issued an edict making Christianity a permitted religion, making it legal for them to bold property and to build churches.
So the Edict of Toleration of Gallienus is tremendously important and began the 40 year period at which we have just been looking.
We
have been looking at J, forty years of freedom from persecution. There isn't
much we know about these years. The great leaders had been killed in the
preceding persecution. There's not a great deal of information about these
years, but we know of the great growth of the church; the great extension of
worldliness along with its great growth; we noted something of Paul of
Samosata, the great Bishop of Antioch who seems to have been such an extremely
worldly man; who fell into heresy, and was deprived of his bishopric on account
of it, by unanimous action of most of the other bishops; and then we noticed
Lucian, whom we don't know a great deal about; he was a textual scholar, and he
died a martyr. And then just a word or two on
K. The Church of Rome in the 3rd Century. Looking back from our present viewpoint of the great importance in the world of the Church of Rome today, and its claims, it is vital that we see what happened to it in these centuries. And so we have already mentioned in our discussion just about everything of importance in connection with the Church of Rome during this century. We have not any actors among them who were of outstanding importance during that century. And that is a strange thing. It is a strange thing that the church in the very center of the empire—the most important position in the empire occupied by this church—that this church should not have had even one man after the time of St. Clement up to the end of this 3rd century, not even one man in a position of supreme administrative leadership who is recognized as one of the outstandingly great characters in ancient church history.
If you name 15 or 20 of the leading characters in the church in the first three centuries, Clement will probably be one of them; but no others of the Bishops of Rome. And we noticed in the beginning of the century, Zephyrinus and Callistus. They would be of little importance to us, if it were not for the great claims that the Roman church makes today about the Bishop of Rome having been the divinely established head of the Church of Christ ever since the days of the apostles. And Zephyrinus and Callistus, while they may not have been really bad men, were certainly not great men; and they certainly had their faults, both of them.
Zephyrinus was accused by people of his day of being wrong on a certain number of doctrines—on the basic doctrines about the person of Christ. I don't think we can say he was a heretic; I think we can say he was rather careless. He wanted to do what was right probably, but he certainly was not a good man to be a leader of the church of Christ in the world. Of his successor Callistus, Hippolytus has a good deal to say about him; he presents him as pretty much of a scamp, yet he is called a saint in the Roman Church; one of the catacombs is named after him. Of course, he had charge of the cemeteries before he was bishop, and some think he made quite a bit of graft off of that. But we don't know a great deal about him; certainly he was not a great man and he may not have been a good man at all.
McSorley in his history mentions St. Hippolytus; and whether Hippolytus was an anti-Pope or not is a question. We have no proof he was. But Hippolytus was a Roman and a man of real ability; a real leader in the church, but not a man recognized as Bishop of the Church of Rome; and whether he ever was bishop of an opposing group is purely a guess. For some, it was an easy way for them to get around his accusations against Zephyrinus and Callistus, to say he led an opposing group; but we have no proof. Now the other bishops, going into this century, there were 15 men altogether, who—just listen to this brief introductory paragraph that McSorley has [ibid.,p.53]:
"From St. Zephyrinus to St. Marcellinus, fifteen men occupied the papal throne."
The Roman Church called every bishop in the early centuries a saint—every Bishop of Rome. Fifteen men occupied the Papal throne.
[Continuing] "The three most important were St. Callistus I, St. Cornelius and St. Dionysius. Callistus faced the formidable opposition of the scholarly but heretical Tertullian and of Hippolytus, first anti-Pope."
Well we've noticed Tertullian was not heretical, though he did throw his influence with the Montanists at the end of his life; they were not heretical in any way that can be proven today, though some of the things they were accused of would have been heretical.
[Continuing] "Cornelius, who had difficulty with Novatian, the second anti-Pope, engaged in a correspondence with St. Cyprian (over the restoration of the 'lapsed'), which forms one of our most precious early Christian legacies."
One of our most precious early Christian legacies is the correspondence of Cornelius, Bishop of Rome and Stephen, Bishop of Rome, with Cyprian; but what makes it precious is Cyprian, not the Bishop of Rome.
[Continuing] "Dionysius clarified Christian faith during the confusion caused by the Sabellian affirmation that only one divine person existed and by the Marcionite doctrine of three separate divine Beings."
Well, that's what he says about Dionysius; but in church history he doesn't rank important enough that I even mention him to you. He did have a clearer understanding of the fact than some of his predecessors. I would think St. Stephen, as they call him, was more important than he, in the history of the Roman Church.
McSorley explains: "St Stephen I (254-257) is known mainly for his defense of the validity of heretical baptism against St. Cyprian." Then he goes on and tells about it, he says, "The language of the letters exchanged between St. Stephen and St. Cyprian during this dispute indicates that the issue was merely disciplinary. Cyprian maintained that as Bishop he had the right to settle the questions for persons within his jurisdiction." That's certainly not recognizing any Papal supremacy. [Continuing] "Whereas the Pope insisted that there should be no innovation." Then he has a footnote: "The African Churches followed St. Cyprian's practice until the Council of Arles in 314."
And [Continuing] "Stephen was appealed to by the bishops of Gaul to condemn the followers of Novatian in that region; and he also received an appeal from two bishops of Spain who were accused of having lapsed from the faith." Naturally, minor bishops would appeal to the Bishop of the leading city for help in situations, but he does not say that Stephen was able to give them any help of any importance.
Now the last Bishop of Rome during this century, St. Marcellinus—here's what McSorley says about him:
[ibid. p55] "St. Marcellinus (296-304) began to rule just before the outbreak of the persecution under Diocletian. A hundred years after his death a Donatist bishop in Africa affirmed that Marcellinus had denied the faith; but the truth of this report was questioned by St. Augustine." What does that prove but that he questioned the truth of the report? Somebody comes along and says, "A certain man in 1800 was a traitor." I say, "I question it." Well, what do I know about it, one way or the other? It proves nothing. But it was questioned by St. Augustine. But McSorley cannot avoid giving this final statement: "There remains, however, a probability that during the persecution he did not behave with sufficient bravery to win the respect of the faithful."
In other words, one hundred years after the time of Marcellinus, people believed that this Bishop of Rome had denied the faith—in fear of being killed in the persecution, had denied the faith. That is what people believed. We have no proof. McSorley said, "Of course it isn't true; the Bishop of Rome, the head of the Church, wouldn't do such a thing. Of course it isn't true." Well, that's pure conjecture. We don't know. And he, however, feels that the evidence is strong enough that we must admit there's a probability that he did not behave with sufficient bravery for the respect of the faithful.
Now it is no great criticism of the Church of Rome if one of its Bishops fell into apostasy in the fear of persecution. It is no criticism of the church. There is probably no church in history but what has had prominent men in it who have not had the bravery to face persecution for their faith. But it is a thing which you would not expect if the Roman Catholic claims should be true: that God ordained the Bishop of Rome as the Head of the Church. Then you would expect that he would show true leadership. And here are three centuries; and Clement, of whom we know very little, is the only Roman bishop of whom we can say that he showed any true leadership in the Church of Christ during three long centuries. There might easily, in any Church in a prominent city, be two or three of real importance, but here is three hundred years and we don't even have one of outstanding ability. That, to me, is a practical, pretty strong fact in opposition to the Roman Catholic idea that God established the Bishop of Rome as the head of the church.
This is a century different from any before, in that we know a tremendous lot about the Church during this century. We could take a year on the 4th century. We couldn't do that on any earlier centuries; we'd spend an awful lot of our time on conjecture. Now there are a great many facts in the 4th Century we don't know, just as there are in any century; but there are a great many facts we do know. We have a tremendous lot of material about this century, and consequently we have to just take—among dozens of men we know of—pick the most important, instead of giving the greater part of what information is available, as we had to in those earlier centuries, concerning which our knowledge is so limited. The 4th century we know a great deal about; and we want to try to pick the main things, because there are a great many very important things in that extremely interesting and extremely vital history.
If
you were to pick four centuries or five centuries in the history of the
Christian Church as the most important in church history, certainly this would
be one of them—this 4th century. And so we will call
A. The
Persecution of Diocletian.
1. The Situation at 303. We have already noted that during the 3rd century, up till 284, there was a great succession of military rulers: men who got their power because their army supported them; men who lost their power as soon as the army turned against them; as soon as they were killed in battle; or as soon as somebody assassinated them. There was constant change in the imperial power, with the army really exerting the force, up till 284. And then we noted that in 284, the head of the imperial bodyguard, Diocletian, seized the throne after the emperor had been assassinated; he killed the man who had assassinated him. Some even think Diocletian may have been implicated in the assassination. There's no proof one way or the other. But he did not try the man who had assassinated him; everybody knew he had done it; he simply killed him and seized the power for himself.
And Diocletian established the Roman Empire on a more solid foundation than it had been on for a hundred years; and it remained on this new foundation for a very long time. Diocletian was a great force in the re-solidifying of the Roman Empire. He set to work—as we noticed—to make things more solid, and he made many improvements in the general government; and one thing he did was to do away with all the forms of republican government which they had had before.
For nearly 300 years, the Senate had been treated with great respect, treated as if the Senate was ruling; and actually the Senate did the ruling. The Emperor would defer to the Senate, and use all kinds of courteous words; but Diocletian just did away with that and recognized plainly he was the monarch. Then Diocletian tried to make it so that the monarch wouldn't be quite so easy to assassinate. One thing he did for that was to make the monarch sort of a god. Now some of the earlier monarchs had called themselves gods; Diocletian said he was a reincarnation of Jupiter. But he made himself like an oriental potentate. Anyone coming to see him had to go through about six groups of guards before he got there; and he had to get down with his face on the ground, and crawl for 30 or 40 feet till he got up to the throne, and bow there until Diocletian would touch him and tell him he might rise; all that sort of thing which would set him apart, so that it would be difficult for the ordinary person to get to him, and much more difficult for anyone to assassinate him.
Assassination had been so common during the previous 7 or 8 years. And he surrounded himself—he the son of a slave—a man who had risen by his own efforts and his own ability. He set to work in another way to make himself safer; he said in the past, an emperor has only small children or young boys who are not trained; and if somebody assassinates him, there is nobody to succeed him and capable of carrying on; and they simply take over, take it away. Now, he said, "We will make it so a person can't assassinate and afterward step into his place." He said, "I will appoint another, an Associate-Emperor who will automatically become the successor if anybody does assassinate him." So he appointed a rough soldier named Maximian, who is quite important for general history, but for church history not greatly important here. He appointed Maximian only two years after he became Emperor as his associate. And Diocletian had his palace in the East, and he had Maximian have his headquarters in the West; and Maximian and himself were each called Augustus; but he was the Great Augustus, and Maximian was subject to him. And if anything happened to him, Maximian would automatically take over, And then about six years later, in 292, he extended this further. He said, "Now we will take two men; we have two men called Augustus; we will take two men and call them each Caesar. And each Caesar will be an emperor also, but he will be subject to the Augustus; so that there will be as natural successors two Caesars, to succeed the men who were Augustus."
And he said, after a man has been Augustus for 20 years he should resign, so that the Caesars will then move up to be Augustus. That was the plan he made. The plan did not work; it fell to pieces eventually. But it gave a period of quietness and of solidity, and it established the Roman Empire again on a foundation which lasted for nearly 200 years, longer than any important powers of modern times have lasted; so that the Roman Empire was greatly helped by Diocletian giving it this period of getting it solidified again.
Now one of the men whom he appointed Caesar is a man—two of them in fact—both of them are of very considerable importance. Diocletian, while he was a good soldier, was primarily an administrator; he was an excellent ruler, and he appointed a rough soldier as his associate—as the Caesar in the East—this man was named Galerius. Diocletian gets all the blame for the persecution, but Galerius was really responsible. Diocletian is such a great figure in Roman history that it's important to know about him; but as far as church history would be concerned, Galerius is really more important.
Diocletian was the administrator, the able, just ruler; he had a soldier, a strong man at his associate, Galerius. And on the other hand, the other Emperor was Maximian, who was a rough brutal soldier, but an excellent soldier; and with him he put a man who was more like Diocletian, in fact even more so; he was a mild, humane fellow, a good soldier, but a man who was characterized by kindliness and a good administrator; he administered in the Danube area. Now Diocletian made him the Caesar to assist Maximian, and he is a man of considerable importance. His name was Constantius Chlorus.
Now Diocletian said to these three men, "We four are going to stand together and rule the Empire thoroughly; and therefore we should be members of the same family, so there'll be no chance of any break-up between us"; and therefore, he said, "Galerius and Constantius, I want each of you to marry a daughter of the Augustus you're with." Well they were already married, so he just said, "Well, divorce your wife, and you, Galerius marry my daughter; Constantius, you marry Maximian's." And so they did that.
But Constantius, when he divorced his wife, already had a son. And it may be that Diocletian was a little bit afraid of Constantius' loyalty—we don't know—but at any rate he said, "In order to make sure, we will take his son, a little boy, and bring him to Nicomedia"—to the palace of Diocletian and let Constantius' son be raised in Diocletian's palace. Well, that man had a hostage, you see. Constantius who had to divorce his wife he loved in order to become the Caesar, he was deprived of the son he loved, but if he were to turn traitor they'd have the son as a hostage, and he thought that would guarantee his remaining loyal.
Well, the son is one of the most important characters in all church history—that is, he wasn't then, but he developed into one. This son of Constantius Chlorus was raised in the palace of Diocletian; but his father, Constantius Chlorus, reigned in the West, and ruled over France and Spain and England—then called Britain—these were the territories over which Constantius reigned; and he reigned well, he was an able man and kindly man, and a good administrator.
Well, this is the situation. These men had been reigning for about ten years—Maximian for about 17 or 18—when Diocletian begins to turn against the Christians. Diocletian for 18 years reigned without disturbing the Christians at all. He ruled as a wise and good ruler; any Christian who was wrongly treated, that is, in any matter of property rights, or anything, could appeal to the imperial courts and win protection. In the army, occasionally someone would be persecuted for being a Christian, but such cases were not numerous. Diocletian gave equal justice to all his people pretty much during this period of 18 years.
We
have already noticed that in Nicomedia, Diocletian's capital, there was a
Christian church which was more prominent than the imperial palace. It was one
of the great churches of the empire; it was attended by great numbers of
people, among whom were Diocletian's own wife and Diocletian's daughter, the
wife of the Caesar. These two women were regular attendants of the church; they
gave every indication of being very earnest Christian women. Not only that, but
among the leaders in Diocletian's palace, the two leading men of the officials
of the palace were both ardent Christians. And many of the officers of
Diocletian's government were Christians, but Diocletian himself was an earnest
pagan; he never undertook any important activity without killing an animal and
examining its intestines to see what they would tell about the future—whether it
was an auspicious time to do this. He was devoted to the old Roman ceremonies,
to the pagan beliefs; he said that he himself was an incarnation of Jupiter on
earth again.
2. The Outbreak of Persecution. And we don't know what turned him against the Christians. Some say that there was one time when he wanted to have the sacrifice and have the entrails examined in order to learn the future and that the priest said, "They tell us nothing! They tell us nothing! There are people here who don't believe in the old gods, and the result is that the oracle will give us no information." There were Christian officers in Diocletian's household, standing there beside him; and that the priests used this means of doing it. Others say that the Neo-Platonists, who—some of them—were very, very prominent, were working up opposition to the Christians. All these factors may have entered in, but the principal factor was Galerius, undoubtedly.
Galerius was a soldier—a rough soldier—and Galerius was becoming more and more anti-Christian. And Galerius began to endeavor to persuade Diocletian that Christianity must be destroyed. Galerius said, "The Christians are an empire within an empire. They hold secret meetings; they have their private meetings, with bishops from over a large area coming together and discussing all sorts of matters; here's a secret group which stands by itself within the empire; they're getting stronger all the time; one of these days, they will get strong enough to take over the empire. And it would be better to destroy them while it can still be done." He said, "We had better take action against the Christians soon, or we'll find they'll be taking action against us." Which, of course, is what happened in the end. And so, Galerius urged that the Christians be destroyed; and eventually Diocletian, after meeting with various officials at different places and discussion at length, Diocletian gave orders that Christianity should be destroyed.
Now Diocletian did not wish any blood to be shed. He said we must not injure individuals; we mustn't kill anybody; he said, "To suppress Christianity will be no easy task. I don't like to undertake it, but for the stability of the empire perhaps it is necessary." And so he said, "If it is necessary, let's go about it in such a way as to destroy this group." And so he issued an edict in 303—February 303. And this edict said—there is no mention of punishment or death in it—but it said: 1. "All churches are to be destroyed"; 2. (this was a new one, the result of the Neo-Platonists) "All Christian writings are to be destroyed." The Christians have got books they read; they get their cohesion from them; they get their strength from them; they stand on these books; if these books are destroyed, they will have nothing to bind them together. All Christian writings are to be destroyed. And 3. "All persons who profess Christianity are to be rendered incapable of holding rank and property, and to be degraded to the position of slave."
Well, that was a pretty strong thing to say, when leaders of his own household were Christian. His wife and daughter were Christian. And it went right into the very center of the administration of the empire. But the edict was given suddenly; the Christians were kept from knowing what was in the wind; all of a sudden one day, a large group of soldiers at dawn proceeded to the great church there in Nicomedia; they broke in the doors; they rushed into the church; they seized all the movable things: the pulpit, the chairs, and everything; they brought them outside and made a great big bonfire of them. Anything that was of metal—that was of value—they took away. Everything else they broke up and set fire to it; and they burned down the church. So the great church of Nicomedia was destroyed as the first thing in the persecution. And then signs were posted all around about this edict.
An elderly Christian named George saw this edict; he read it and indignantly declared that God would destroy the emperor who had made such a wicked edict as that; and he grabbed the paper, and he tore it down; he tore it to pieces and threw it on the ground. The soldiers who saw him do it, seized him, and took him back to the emperor. The emperor said, "This man is punished, not for being a Christian, but for being disobedient to the emperor; for showing such an attitude toward the emperor's edict; let him be roasted to death over a slow fire." So he was terribly tortured and killed; the bishop of Nicomedia, and the two chamberlains of the leaders in Diocletian's household, who declared what they thought of the edict, were considered as being traitors to the emperor and were killed also.
Galerius ordered something more than this. He said there was a plot against him in the imperial household, so the slaves of the household were tortured to find out who the culprits were. Galerius said his own life was in danger; that the Christians were trying to kill him; a fire broke out in the palace, which burned several of the rooms; and it burned Diocletian's own bedroom; and Galerius said the Christians are doing it; some of them thought Galerius did it himself in order to throw the blame on the Christians. It may have been just an accident; we have no way to know what caused it; but there was another fire that broke out. Most people believed that the Christians did not cause the fire; but Galerius succeeded in arousing Diocletian against the Christians still more.
And a second edict was put forth in March, ordering the arrest of all the Christian servants. There was a third edict at the end of the year; an edict that Diocletian had completed the 20th year of his reign; and that all prisoners were—as far as possible—to be released in honor of the celebration of finishing the 20th year of his reign; and that all Christians in prison, all the clergy, with whom the prison was full, would be freely permitted to go out, provided they would give up Christianity and recant. If they would not, they were to be tortured if necessary to force them to sacrifice.
Well, a great many of the clergy, they say, immediately took advantage of the opportunity to get out of prison by denying their faith. But there were others who faced the torture, and suffered with it; and then Diocletian fell seriously ill; and while he was ill and unable to do anything, the Roman Senate and Maximian in the West resolved that they would persecute in earnest. Diocletian wasn't able to hold them back, because he was very ill and at the time unable to do anything. And they issued a new edict, ordering Christians to be punished with death. This was in April 304. Now Diocletian recovered from his illness; and in May, 305, he retired to private life and forced Maximian to do the same. But the persecuting was well under way; and Galerius was now the supreme ruler in the East and Galerius was carrying on the persecution very, very strongly.
A new name came up now—the name of traditor. And during the succeeding centuries, it was a terrible accusation to bring against anybody to call him a traditor. A traditor was a man who handed over the sacred books to the pagans. This was a traditor; anybody who would let the Bible come into pagan hands. Now probably we have suffered terribly in our knowledge of the exact text of the Bible through this Diocletianic persecution, because thousands of copies of the Scripture were destroyed. They were trying to get hold of all the copies. And a Christian would—many of them would—die rather than reveal where the Scripture was hidden; but many copies were seized, and a man who would give up the sacred Scriptures was called a traditor—one who turned them over—one who traded the Scripture for his life.
And
so, in succeeding years, when the persecution was over, that was the question
about many a man; had this man been a traditor? Had he saved his life by giving
up the Scriptures? Well, so much for the outbreak of persecution,
3. The Attitude of Constantius Chlorus. Now just for a side-glance—the attitude of Constantius Chlorus. Constantius Chlorus, whose son was in the palace of Diocletian as a hostage—but receiving a good training there—a training eventually to have an important position in the empire, Constantius Chlorus was the Caesar in the West. He, in 292, had been put in charge of Britain and France—they called it Gaul then.
He was in charge of these areas, but there was an important official under him in Spain. Now the orders came from Diocletian: "Inaugurate this persecution." Constantius Chlorus was not a Christian. He was a kindly man; he was a just ruler; he had his orders; he put up the orders and he destroyed the Church. But he did his best to keep from injuring individuals, or from enforcing the rules, the persecution against the individuals. During this time, then, of the Diocletianic persecution there was less persecution in France and in England than in any other part of the empire. Constantius held back from it—trying to give excuses; he did not come into opposition with the emperor on it, he gave excuses for it; there was no telegram—nothing like that in those days, no telephone—information was slow in coming. He would send an account of how he had torn down this great church, burnt it up and all that; and he wouldn't mention the fact that he hadn't put the clergyman in prison. The Christians were still holding their meetings, in their homes or out in the fields. He wouldn't mention that.
The
persecution was extremely slight in France and in Britain, because of
Constantius' attitude. But in Spain, the governor of Spain who was under
Constantius Chlorus, was himself a man who hated the Christians, and he carried
out the edict vigorously, as Constantius passes on the edict; and in Spain
there is much persecution. Constantius could have stepped into Spain with force
and stopped the persecution; but if he did that he would be coming into
conflict with the orders to him to carry on the persecution. He did not do
that. The persecution in Spain was not as severe as in the East, but far more
severe than in Britain or in France. Well, this is the attitude of Constantius
Chlorus; and it makes a great difference there from other countries during this
Diocletianic persecution. But in contrast to that we have
4. Persecution
in the East.
In the east, the year 308 is the year which many call "the year of the
martyrs." That was a year in which the persecution was the most severe. It
was a year of terror; and in the east, the persecution was very great; there
were thousands of people killed and tortured, many copies of the Scriptures
destroyed; it looked as if the Christians would be completely exterminated.
5. The Greatest
Persecution in the History of the Christian Church. It was, as you
see, a far greater persecution than any that occurred before. For one thing there
were perhaps three times as many Christians than in previous persecutions. But
for another thing, this was not like Trajan, who said, "Well it's wrong to
be a Christian, but if a person denies it, all right." This was an attempt
to destroy Christianity. It was an attempt to deliberately search out the
clergy and kill them; to search out the sacred books and destroy them; to put
an end to Christianity. That's what it was. It was the greatest and most
terrible persecution in the whole history of the church. And it lasted, you
see, for many years, in the East. In the West, the persecution was much less
severe. But even so, when you think of France and Britain having all their
churches destroyed, that's pretty severe. And in Spain many people were killed
too.
6. Persecution in Italy and North Africa. Now Italy and North Africa were directly under Maximian. Maximian was the rough soldier who delighted in brutality. He does not seem to have been a man like Galerius, who was definitely anti-Christian and anxious to destroy Christianity; but he had the orders of Diocletian; he saw the wisdom of Diocletian's ideas, that it was good to destroy any force that might threaten to become supreme in the empire; and he enjoyed carrying out that sort of thing. And so there was a very considerable amount of persecution in Italy. And it was very difficult for a number of years to even have a bishop of Rome; because anybody in that position was naturally in a very prominent place, and he would be immediately seized and put into prison or killed. And Marcellinus, the Bishop of Rome, was said a century later to have denied the faith. Well we continue there tomorrow.
Now we talked yesterday about the persecution of Diocletian and we mentioned 1, the situation at 303. The church after 40 years of peace and great big wonderful churches built, and even the members of the Emperor's family Christians, and leaders in his palace—it must have seemed to everybody as if the persecution was about as far back as it seems to us today. And yet all of a sudden this terrible persecution broke out. That's 2, the outbreak of persecution. Suddenly the soldiers came and destroyed that very beautiful church; and they proceeded to destroy all the churches in the Empire, hundreds of them—some great beautiful churches, some very poor churches, but all these great churches destroyed.
Then 3, we noticed the attitude of Constantius Chlorus. I mentioned to you that Constantius Chlorus had a son, who as a boy was taken to Diocletian's palace and educated. He was held sort of as a hostage. That's one way to make sure that Constantius Chlorus would be good and wouldn't revolt against Diocletian. But his son was there in Diocletian's palace as a young man. He was in this pagan atmosphere; and yet the boy knew there were Christians around, and he saw something of their character. The boy was there but his father Constantius' court was way across the Empire, in charge of France, England and Spain. And we noted that Constantius' court carried out the persecution only as far as he felt was necessary to keep from angering Diocletian again. He destroyed all the churches but he did as little as he could to injure individuals. But the governor of Spain, under him, carried out the persecution rigidly. There was much persecution in Spain. Then we mentioned briefly 4, persecution in the East; under that we noticed the persecution in the East where Galerius was in control was extremely severe. And we noticed that in 305, Diocletian retired. He had been 21 years as emperor; his rule was after 20 years the Augustuses were to retire, and let the Caesars assume the position of Augustuses; so he retired and this left Galerius his Caesar in full sway in the East. Then 5, we turned back to Italy and North Africa, and we noticed that Maximian there in North Africa carried on the persecution quite vigorously.
But under this head, I want to mention briefly what could take half an hour explaining the detail of; and there'd be three or four tremendously interested in this; the rest of you would become greatly confused; the fact that Diocletian's plan now broke down; and when he retired, and when Maximian retired in Italy, the plan broke down; and in Italy and in Europe you had a considerable confusion for the next six years, considerable turmoil as different forces were grappling for position.
What I want you to get particularly is one of these forces, how it came out—that is, the young son of Constantius Chlorus. This young son's name was Constantine; as we have mentioned, he had been brought up as a boy at Diocletian's court. Diocletian had retired and Galerius was in control. Constantine began to see that Galerius wasn't very friendly toward him. His father was the other Augustus. His father was in charge directly of Gaul and of Spain; he was the Augustus II of the two top emperors of the empire.
He was at the court of Galerius. and he began to feel that Galerius was rather unfriendly toward him; and to fear that something perhaps might be done to suddenly seize him and to put him out of the way; that Galerius would like to have his friends succeed him rather than have young Constantine, so he decided he'd better get away from Galerius; so suddenly he left the palace in the East there. He was quite a brilliant young fellow—even at this time—so he headed West; and at every post stop where he stopped—one account said—he seized all the post horses; instead of taking a fresh horse for himself, he took all the horses with him; another account says he maimed the horses except the one horse which he took. You can't tell which is true, but we know this, he took measures to make it very difficult for himself to be pursued; and this young fellow fled across Europe, all the distance from there to France, looking for his father; to get to his father where he thought he'd be safe; and he got to his father in England—Britain as it was then called—found his father there; and he was with his father there when his father was killed in battle. His father had been Augustus only one year when he was killed in battle. And this young fellow—only about 21 years of age—who had been with his father a very short time, was immediately proclaimed by the troops as the successor of his father, and the Roman Emperor.
Well, the young fellow was, as you see, in an interesting situation. He is declared to be head of the whole empire—next to Galerius and maybe equal with him—by his troops; and this happened in northern Britain. And Galerius says, "No, this won't work at all." Galerius said, "I'm going to send a man—one of my friends—who will succeed Constantius Chlorus; he will be governor, second emperor." And then Constantine joins with the son of Maximian in Italy, and they attack the man Galerius sent; they plot against him, defeat him, and after they did so, they permitted him to commit suicide; so that that left the two of them in control in the West.
Now all you need to remember about this is that Constantine, son of Constantius Chlorus, declared Emperor in 305, had a long series of battles and difficulties to go through in the next six years in maintaining himself; and six years went by, sometimes with peace, sometimes with considerable fighting; in the end, Maximian himself tried to take the power back; and Constantine eventually captured him and gave him the same privilege he had earlier: let him commit suicide.
That was 311; but by 311, Constantine was in almost complete control in the West. The persecution has not been carried on much in his territory; it has been to a very considerable extent in Italy and in North Africa.
Under this head still, I just want to say a word or two about events in North Africa. I want to mention briefly about North Africa now, because we look back to it later. During this time in North Africa the persecution was quite severe. That was under Maximian, as you know; and then under his successor, his son Maxentius; and they had a proconsul under them in charge of North Africa, and the persecution was quite severe, though not as severe as in the East. And in North Africa, the bishops faced a situation like what Cyprian had faced. There were many very real and noble martyrs, and many confessors who were very noble.
But in North Africa there, there were quite a number of people who impressed the bishop as being men of low character—men who did not deserve recognition as true Christians, but who had the idea they could make up for all their past faults and failings if now they would go and boldly declare themselves to be Christians. And these people were being given tremendous praise, and it had a tendency to hurt the whole attitude of the African church; and so the bishop tried to lead the people to a more reasonable attitude—the attitude that if they are taken they should boldly stand for their faith—but they shouldn't go and denounce themselves and try to win the glory of martyrdom; it was better to live for Christ unless He worked it in such a way that you are put in a position where you should suffer and die for him; that seems to have been the Bishop's attitude.
You definitely refuse to offer sacrifice. If accused of being Christians, to declare that they were; but not to go and say, "Now, look here, I'm a Christian; you've taken this other fellow; you've got to take me too if you're consistent," and thus putting themselves into that position where great numbers of them were put in prison; and others were coming and almost worshipping them, standing outside the prison and saying, "Aren't these men wonderful!" Taking the handkerchief that these men had handled; and taking it home and blessing it; praising it because it was touched by a confessor who, in some cases were very brave Christian people, and in other cases the bishop didn't think were very fine Christians at all.
So in later times, a group that split off from the church in North Africa declared that the bishop had sent his archdeacon with a big whip to drive away the people; to keep them from venerating the confessor; and that some of the confessors died in prison of starvation because the archdeacon wouldn't let them bring food to them, and all that kind of thing; so there is the start of a tremendous upheaval later on in North Africa; we will look at it later; I just mentioned here under North Africa.
During
this persecution, it was pretty difficult to even have a bishop of Rome, because
the persecution was very severe in Rome; and if they elected a Roman bishop, he
was immediately put in prison or killed. It was a very, very difficult time for
a bishop of Rome; but in Carthage the bishop was very active in the church. It is a very interesting period; I wish we
could take a month on it, but it isn't nearly as important as the thing we're
coming to now. The main thing is how Constantine came to get the supreme power;
that we want to have a general idea of, because that is very important.
7. The Death of Galerius. We have not said a great deal about Galerius, but what we have said about him is very important. Galerius was the instigator of the persecution. He is the man who persuaded Diocletian to start it. He is the man who carried on the persecution most energetically. There were others who were very severe, but none who was more severe than Galerius in carrying on the persecution. He was Emperor of the East, absolutely supreme in the East for years, and nominally over the West; and he was pushing and urging that the persecution go forward; but in 311 he got a very loathsome disease. He was very ill; he had had some bad reversals in battle, on the borders of the Empire.
He felt that much of the strength he should have had was lost, because some of his finest officers had been killed as Christians; and some of the people who should have been most active in the support of the Empire, and who had been loyally serving under Diocletian, were in prison or working as slaves in the mines. And Galerius came to the conclusion, just before his death, that the persecution was a failure. And so in 311 Galerius issued an edict shortly before his death. And to it, this edict, he appended the names of the other Augustus and the Caesars, including Constantine. But the evidence is definite that he wrote this edict himself; and he wrote to them and asked them to permit their names to be appended to it. It was Galerius' edict. Now, I thought I had a copy of the edict right at my hand, to read it, but I find I do not. Maybe I'll read it to you tomorrow. At any rate, I will tell you its general contents which will probably be just as good as if I read you the precise words.
[Edict of Toleration by Galerius, 311 AD
"Among other arrangements which we are always accustomed to make for the prosperity and welfare of the republic, we had desired formerly to bring all things into harmony with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to provide that even the Christians who had left the religion of their fathers should come back to reason; since, indeed, the Christians themselves, for some reason, had followed such a caprice and had fallen into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity, which perchance their own ancestors had first established; but at their own will and pleasure, they would thus make laws unto themselves which they should observe and would collect various peoples in diverse places in congregations. Finally when our law had been promulgated to the effect that they should conform to the institutes of antiquity, many were subdued by the fear of danger, many even suffered death. And yet since most of them persevered in their determination, and we saw that they neither paid the reverence and awe due to the gods nor worshipped the God of the Christians, in view of our most mild clemency and the constant habit by which we are accustomed to grant indulgence to all, we thought that we ought to grant our most prompt indulgence also to these, so that they may again be Christians and may hold their conventicles, provided they do nothing contrary to good order. But we shall tell the magistrates in another letter what they ought to do. Wherefore, for this our indulgence, they ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.]
The edict starts something like this: He at the beginning of his reign had felt that the Christians constituted a menace to the Empire. But that he had come to see that the method of dealing with it was a failure; that they were too numerous and too determined to be destroyed without the empire itself being seriously endangered; that this was not the best method of dealing with them. He felt that it was necessary to use another method of appealing to them to be loyal to the Empire, and to forget what had been done against them in the past; and therefore that this persecution was to be brought to an end; and so in return for this goodness, he hoped that they would all remember him in their prayers, that he might recover from his disease and be a prosperous emperor.
It's most ludicrous to think of a man taking the attitude that they should be destroyed, but now that he has decided to drop the persecution, that they should turn around and start praying for him. He died very shortly afterward. But it is Galerius who stopped the persecution—the man who had started it. And he issued this edict which brought the persecution to an end; but the persecution wasn't entirely at an end, because there was one of his associates who carried it on for a couple of years; and then two years later in one section a man who was claiming to be an Emperor carried it on for a year, but mainly the persecution was now at an end in 311, when Galerius recognized it to be a failure.
So the persecution of Diocletian begins with the church at peace; it ends with its instigator having recognized that it was a failure. But probably this would have been just the same if an edict of toleration had been made 50 years before. It would have been another edict of toleration which might last ten years, might last thirty, might last fifty years; but the toleration would doubtless have come to an end if it were not for one man and what he did; and that man is Constantine the Great.
[student: Why did Galerius issue the Edict?] We cannot look into his mind; we cannot tell. My personal guess is that if he hadn't had the sickness, he would not have issued it at that time. But maybe two or three years later he might have. That is to say, I think that he recognized that the persecution was not accomplishing its purpose. The sickness brought it to a sharp focus. Maybe without the sickness it would have come to that point a little later. On the other hand, maybe he would have continued persecuting till the end of his life, and someone else would have come to that conclusion; but it was proving that Christianity was too strong a factor in the Empire.
It was impossible to destroy Christianity without destroying the very strength of the Empire, to the point where the Empire was not worth keeping. And he recognized that. There are a hundred thousand people who have heard of Constantine for every one who has ever heard of Galerius. But Galerius is the man who started the persecution. Everybody calls it the persecution of Diocletian, and it was; without Diocletian coming to decide to do it, it wouldn't have been done. It was Diocletian who did it, but he did it because Galerius persuaded him. For 18 years Diocletian ruled and never molested the Christians. Unfortunately, that great and able ruler ruined his reputation for all time by the fact that at the end of his reign he instigated this terrible persecution.
But
it was Galerius that persuaded him to do it. Galerius carried it on more than
anybody else, while it was going, after Diocletian's retirement. At one time
things got so bad that Galerius and one of the other leaders in the Empire went
to see Diocletian in retirement; and they said, "Diocletian do come back
and become Emperor again. Things are in a tough spot and we need you."
Diocletian said, "I'm perfectly happy here on my little farm raising
cabbages, and I don't want to bother about the Empire any more." And he
refused to go back. Diocletian was wise; he played his part in public affairs,
and when it was finished, he left it to others. But it was Galerius who carried
it on. And Galerius it was who stopped it; so actually in the history of the
church, Galerius is a man of tremendous importance. But Galerius couldn't have
done it alone. Galerius couldn't have started it if he hadn't persuaded Diocletian
to do it. And Galerius' stopping it would not have been a permanent cessation,
if it were not for Constantine, who carried on the process of putting an end to
the persecution. Constantine is therefore a man who is rightly remembered in
the Christian church, as a man of tremendous importance both for good and for
ill.
B. Constantine the Great. He is one of the great men in history; there are not a great many who deserve the title "the Great." But he is certainly one who does. Because of two things: one is, he is a man who made tremendous changes in the face of the world through his activity; and another is, that these changes were made to a great extent because of his ability, his ideas and his actions.
It
was not just that forces were happening and he came along. There were forces,
that is true; but Constantine had a tremendous effect on world history; and
world history to this very day has been affected by the actions of this man
Constantine.
1. The Rise of Constantine. Most people in the Christian world know that Constantine is the man, the Roman Emperor who first favored Christianity strongly. Most people know that. Most people know that he settled Constantinople, established Constantinople. Very few people know how he came into power. Or what his background was. That I have brought out as we went along, in the course of other things. I want to refer back to it now, to remind you.
He's the son of Constantius Chlorus. He was born about 272. When he was about four years old, his father was made a Caesar; and of course in order to accept the Caesarate, he was forced to marry the daughter of Maximian and to divorce his wife Helena. And his son by Helena, Constantine, was taken into the Emperor's palace at Nicomedia as sort of a hostage; but he had the best things you could get in those days, because he was right at the Emperor's palace, getting a training that a member of the royal family would get. He was well-trained in the Emperor's palace; and then when Galerius was in power, after a brief time he decided it would be safer to get away; so I described how he left the palace and made his way across Europe; and what he did to stop pursuit we don't know, but he did things to make it very difficult to pursue him, because he thought Galerius might try to seize him and bring him back. Then he got to his father in Britain; and shortly after, his father was killed in battle. His father had been Emperor (Augustus) only a year when he was killed in battle. He had been Caesar before that, for 13 years. He was emperor one year, and he was killed. And the troops took the young boy and declared him, not quite 20 yet, and declared him Emperor. And then Constantine had the struggle with the other Caesars and the other Emperors in the East and the West to maintain himself, for six years. And at the end of the six years, he was recognized as one of the two or three main leaders in the West.
Now we find him in Britain with the troops, declaring that he is the proper Emperor; and they find that the son of Maximian is in Rome, Maxentius—not so important, nothing like as important as Galerius—he is in Rome, and he declares himself to be the Emperor. And there's bound to be a clash eventually between them. Shall Constantine stay in Britain and wait for Maxentius to attack him, or shall he take an army and go to him?
Constantine was a man of very careful figuring of possibilities. But he was a man of tremendous courage and enterprise; and he gathered his army and started for Rome. He made his way from Britain over through France, and across the Alps; and he came on down. And Maxentius who was in Rome as the Keeper—Maxentius had previously given a good deal of favors to the Christians; now he felt that he was a part—a strong pagan though; he went to the pagan oracles and asked them, "What shall I do? Constantine is coming, what shall I do? Shall I stay behind the strong walls of Rome, and wait for him to attack and know he can't break through, or shall I go out to him?" And the answer was given, "If you march out of Rome, the enemy of Rome will be destroyed."
And
of course he thought that means I'll destroy Constantine. But—like most pagan
predictors of the future, and unlike the prophets of the Old Testament—the
prediction was given in such a way that whatever happened, they could say it
was true. When he marched out, the enemy of Rome was destroyed, whichever way
the battle went. So Maxentius marched out with his army, and attacked
Constantine.
2. Constantine's Victory. Properly speaking, his victory should include all that happened in the previous six years, when he had maintained himself and resisted the various forces that came against him until eventually, one after another, they were defeated. Now, he faces Maxentius with his great force in Rome; Constantine, on the way to Rome, claims—or at least he told years later—that he had had a vision; that in this vision, he had seen a cross in the sky, and a statement underneath saying, "By this sign conquer." Constantine said, "If I succeed in conquering, I will feel that it is an evidence that I should give my support to Christians and throw in my lot with them." By this sign conquer. He made a standard for his soldiers, which had the Greek letters worked one over the other in a monogram—the letters of Christ—which they held up as an insignia; and by this sign he was going to conquer Maxentius.
So
Constantine faces Maxentius in the battle; and in the battle Constantine was
completely victorious, and Maxentius is drowned in the river by which the
battle took place. Attempting to cross it, he is struck under and is drowned.
So Constantine is now supreme in the western part of the empire. He had
complete control in the western part, and it's just about this time that
Galerius died. So Constantine, with the others who had considerable power in
the Empire, two years later, in 313, they issued another edict. In 311 Galerius
had issued his edict of toleration. This is his edict saying the persecution
would not be carried on any longer, and asking the Christians to pray for him.
In 313 Constantine, together with other claimants for power, issued an edict
which went way beyond Galerius' edict. It was an edict of toleration. We'd
better give that a head by itself.
3. Edict of
Toleration, 313 AD.
This was an edict of true toleration, unlike Galerius' edict of 311. It said
that people should be free to have that religion which they felt to be right.
It did not merely state that Christianity was to be favored; that Christianity
is to be free from persecution; it said all people are to have freedom of
religion. It was an edict of true toleration—the Edict of 313. Now in the Roman
Empire in later years, that edict was not carried on. Christianity was made
eventually the religion of the Roman Empire, and all others were persecuted.
But this Edict gave toleration to all religions. That was the Edict of 313; so
it was not an edict which was maintained even by Constantine; but it is an
edict which marked a big step forward in the end of persecution of Christians.
4. The Advance in Christian Scholarship under Constantine. There are certain very important events in church history which occurred in Constantine's reign for which I wish to give separate heads. So at this point, I'm going to mention two or three things rather separate from these main things, and get them out of the way, under this heading of Constantine; and this one, advance in Christian scholarship under Constantine, is a subject which is good for us to be aware of at this point.
The
Christian Church had been free from persecution for forty years. Now it has
just had a tremendous persecution. Once it was free from it, there was a
tremendous impulse on people to write the history of the persecution; to
celebrate the victory from it; and to celebrate the events which have made a
man who favors Christianity the Emperor. So that gives an impetus to Christian
scholarship. During the persecution, many copies of the Bible have been
destroyed—thousands of them doubtless. There is an impetus now that persecution
is removed to get new copies of the Bible made. Christian scholarship takes a
wonderful step forward during Constantine's time. I want to mention three
specific elements under it.
a. Eusebius' Church History. Eusebius, a man in the East, had been a Christian leader and much interested in ancient events; he wrote a life of Constantine; but he also wrote a history of the Christian Church. And Eusebius proceeded to gather all the material he could, to try to get the facts about the Christian Church, about its previous history, right from the beginning.
And much of what we know—we'd know nothing of Papias if it weren't for the quotations Eusebius gives, though Eusebius had no use for Papias. But he gives quotations from him which are of great interest. Eusebius gives us all kinds of myths and legends, that everybody considers to be myths and legends. He also gives a great many facts of the first century of the Christian Church; probably three-fourths of what we know is from Eusebius, aside from what's in the Bible. He wrote his Church History at this time. You see, it's two hundred and eighty years after the death of Christ—a long, long time afterwards. It's the first real church history after the book of Acts. So Eusebius is a man of tremendous importance in church history and the first writer of church history. And there are some very interesting things that occurred at that time, which we'll look at next week.
[quiz review and comments] If you are to compare Lucian and Plotinus, what is similar between Lucian and Plotinus? They were both highly educated men, both heads of schools, both were much interested in intellectual matters. That is very similar about the two. What is the greatest difference between the two men? Lucian was a Christian, and Plotinus was an enemy of Christianity. That's about the greatest contrast you can get. They were both men of high character. They were men of fine intellect—real students—men who had a very considerable influence on the world; and Plotinus had by far the greater influence of the two; but the sharp contrast, one is a Christian leader and the other is a leader of the greatest anti-Christian movement in history, in fact, he is its greatest leader. He is a man whose influence is tremendous today. Even now, in Paris they have prepared a new edition, a new translation of Plotinus' works; so great is the importance that is attached to him, even to this day. He is a great leader of an anti-Christian movement. Not always recognized as anti-Christian; much of it has been taken into many parts of the Christian church, and many people have given out many aspects of neo-Platonism calling it Christianity. But it, in those days, was recognized as an anti-Christian movement, and it was one of the leaders in the persecution.
Now Lucian is not nearly as important a character as Plotinus. Plotinus was the great leader of that anti-Christian movement. Lucian is a secondary in Christian history. He's a man of whose orthodoxy there is question, because he was a follower of Paul of Samosata. There is question as to his complete orthodoxy; but he certainly considered himself a Christian, and he died a martyr to his faith; in 311 he was killed in the persecution. And he was a man of great importance to textual criticism, though not of the higher criticism; he is not as important as Origen, but of very considerable importance in textual criticism.
I would say, if you would name the 30 most important characters in this year's church history [i.e. pre-reformation], certainly Plotinus is one of them. If you would name the 60, certainly Lucian is one of them. He is not in a position quite with Plotinus, but he's a man of real importance.
Now, when you were asked to compare Mythras and Mani; what would be the elements most comparable in the two of them? What would be the element to compare between the two of them? There is a very interesting similarity; both came from Persia. It's not the most important but a very interesting similarity. Each of them gave his name to a very important anti-Christian movement. That I think is their greatest similarity. The fact they both came from Persia is another interesting similarity, but each of them gave his name to a very important anti-Christian movement in the 3rd century AD. The three most important anti-Christian movements of that century: Neo-Platonism is probably the most important, but the other two, which rank near behind it, one is named after Mythras, Mythraism, and the other is named after Mani, Manichaeism.
Now what is the greatest difference between Mythras and Mani? There is a very vital difference, Mythraism is definitely opposed to Christianity; Manichaeanism sometimes pretended to be a Christian movement, and incorporated much from Christianity. Mythraism may have incorporated some elements; but if it did, it didn't admit it. Manichaeanism did; it represented Christ as a great leader, while Mythraism would have nothing to do with him. But there is an even greater difference—now I am not thinking of Manichaeanism and Mythraism, but between Mani and Mythras—there is an even greater difference than this. Mythras is a god, and Mani is a man. That I think is about as great a difference as you could get. Mythras is a god, Mani is a man. Mythras never was thought of as a man; he was a Persian god, who was worshipped in this military religion, Mythraism. He was a sun-god, traced back to very early days in Persia. Mani is a man, who never claimed to be a god. He's a man who lived in Persia; who traveled extensively; who taught a view which took in a great deal of Gnosticism; but he was a man; never claimed to be a god; never asked men to worship him as such. So the two are about as different as two could be.
[student: Can we say that the difference between the two is that Mythraism expresses moral values, while Manichaeanism expresses spiritual values, as far as Christianity is concerned because they are against the spiritual aspect of Christianity?] I don't quite think that is true. They both of them stress morality—both Mythraism and Manichaeanism. Both of them were rather austere religions. But Mythraism is very definitely a pagan religion; to it, Christianity is just something outside the pale, as far it's concerned; it is a pagan religion. Manichaeanism is a religion which can claim to be a sort of variation of Christianity, though it also claimed to be a variation of Zoroastrianism. It considered Zoroaster as a great leader; it considered Christ as a great leader; and it organized its church with its leaders as twelve apostles, after the model of Christianity. It was an organized church with its representatives all over the Roman world; while Mythraism was more a religion with its temples, its deities; but not with an organization modeled after Christianity. Manichaeanism developed in Christian areas was the—you might say—the climax of Gnosticism. It takes over many of the gnostic views; and it represents the taking of gnostic theories and making an organized church of it. But Mythraism was perhaps more akin to other branches of Persian religion than to Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism was nearer to Monotheism or Dualism than Mythraism. But it was a military religion; and when the Roman Empire became Christian it pretty well died out. But Manichaeanism continued for centuries. And neo-Platonism continues even today; but it's not an organized group, it's a viewpoint.
Well, we'd better get on. The point we were discussing at the end of the last hour was the life and activities of the great Emperor Constantine. He is one of the few men in history who rightly deserves the title, the Great. From a secular viewpoint, he deserves it, because he established the Roman Empire again, continuing what Diocletian had done; he established it on the basis which continued in the East right up to 1453, with a few small breaks. And in the West, it continued for 150 years after Constantine's time, which is longer than most modern nations have existed. Constantine the Great, then, we looked at 3, his edict of toleration, 313. In 311 his name was on the edict of toleration that Galerius made; but 313 was his edict which gave complete religious freedom; the end of all persecution of Christianity; the right of everyone to choose his own religion. And we looked at 4, advance of Christian scholarship; under that we noticed Eusebius' Church History. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, the most learned man of the age; a man whose knowledge was tremendous; whose reading was very extensive; and who preserved for us in his church history all-important material that would otherwise be completely lost; which he copied from books that were then available; that have subsequently become lost. And his selection was on the whole good, though sometimes he quotes things that are clearly worthless, and other times doubtless he omitted probably things that we would be tremendously interested in having, if only he'd kept them.
But
Eusebius is our greatest source for history from the time of Acts up to this
time, in the history of the Christian church. And his material is on the whole
very good, though it must be examined critically. [student: Comparison with
Lucian?] Lucian was an earlier age. I doubt if Lucian was as learned a man as
Eusebius, but Lucian was a very learned man. Lucian was killed in the
persecution of 311, but Eusebius is—he was already a man of some importance
before 311—but his real importance comes after. Now
b. Copies of the
Bible.
During Constantine's reign many, many copies of the Bible were made. Constantine
gave money for it; gave support to it; did everything he could to help in the
production and the spread of copies of scripture. Of course, they all had to be
made by hand, much slower than copying today; but a great impetus was given to
copying the Bible. Oh, if only we had the valuable copies that were destroyed
in the great persecution! Doubtless many excellent texts were gone; and
doubtless some errors were perpetuated now, when the copies were made. And of
these errors many, many copies would be made; and because they immediately
proceeded to make a great many more copies than there had been before. And then
c. Study of
Palestine. Under
this I'm going to make three sub-headings.
(1). Increased interest in Palestine. To us today it seems very strange that during the first three centuries there was so little interest taken in the details of Palestine. And yet it shouldn't seem so strange to us because between 1500 and 1850—that is, between the beginning of the Reformation and the period a 120 years ago—there was very little known about Palestine in the Western world. We were tremendously interested in Luther's writings, and Calvin's writings, and the great principles of the Reformation, and in all the contents of the Bible. But when it came to knowing the precise geography, history and the details of Palestine—the details of where these things were—there was very little done during those three centuries. The greater part of what the Western world knew about Palestine during those centuries was what they would gather simply from the reading of the Bible.
It was an American, Professor [Edward] Robinson, who went over in 1838, and in six weeks' study of Palestine added hundreds of names to our map of Palestine. He tried to figure out where important things were in Palestine. So it is not an extremely strange thing that during these early centuries, the interest was not great in the precise geography of the land of Palestine. But one thing that doubtless did detract some interest in Palestine—and particularly during the first two centuries—was the fact that during the first two centuries there was an almost universal expectation that Christ would return very, very soon. Of that there is no doubt. We read the writings of Tertullian, the writings of Irenaeus, what Eusebius preserved for us from Papias, these other early writers, and every one of them shows in his writings that they expected Christ would return very soon to set up His kingdom upon this earth; and that was their expectation; that was they were looking forward to; their outlook was ahead rather than back.
And that detracted from their having a great interest in details of the places in Palestine where Jesus had been; or where Old Testament events had taken place. Their primary interest was, "What's going to happen? Where is Jesus going to be? And what's he going to do when he comes back?" But the School of Alexandria, at the end of the 2nd century, turned away from pre-millennialism; and Origen opposed pre-millennialism; and there were a good many who opposed it in the 3rd century, though there doubtless were a great many who believed as practically the whole church had during the previous two centuries.
But
now the Emperor was favoring Christianity. Here was the established condition
of the world, with the Emperor with supreme power over most of the world,
favoring Christianity and proceeding to put Christian principles into
operation. Well, it was very easy to feel Christian beliefs are going to
permeate the world; and the Kingdom of Heaven is coming on earth here, through
the influence and activity of the great Roman Emperor. I don't know if that was
consciously thought of on the part of so many, but sort of unconsciously; the
interest centered more on what is here now than on what will come when Christ
comes back. Eusebius was particularly prone to that; Eusebius praises
Constantine to the skies; he wrote these great ovations about Constantine.
After Constantine's death, he felt the kingdom of God was now beginning, with
the Roman Emperor a Christian. And incidentally, Constantine thought the world
of Eusebius; he made him one of his advisors, right from the time of 313, the
edict of toleration. He looked to Eusebius as an advisor and a helper in
getting suggestions from him for governing. And so it would be rather natural
then—the expectation of the return of Christ growing dim—to have an increased
interest in the place where Jesus had been when he was on earth. And during
this period there comes a far greater interest in the land of Palestine than
had ever been before, as far as we have any evidence in Christian history. So
we go on to
(2). Constantine's Mother. In 327 Constantine's mother Helena—who had at the persuasion of her son embraced Christianity—proceeded to make a visit to Palestine to see the places in Palestine where the great events in the life of Christ had occurred; and her son gave her ample funds with which to investigate; and this elderly lady, who was now a very pious and earnest Christian, proceeded to erect a church at the spot on which they thought Jesus had ascended into heaven; and another one at Bethlehem at the place where they thought he was born.
If you go to Bethlehem today, you can see that church; they'll tell you that's the church that Constantine's mother built; and they will show you there a place where there is a gold circle which they say is the very spot where Jesus was born. Nobody knows; the tradition goes back a long, long way. But still it's quite a while after the time of Christ when it was thought that that was the spot.
Now Helena was interested in most any place where anything happened in connection with Christ; but one thing she wanted to know was, "Where was He crucified?" And "where was He raised from the dead?" And so she found a place which she thought was the place where the resurrection took place, right near the place which she thought was where the crucifixion occurred; and there they dug into the ground and they found three crosses. So they said, "Here are the crosses on which Christ and the two thieves were." And they said, "We wonder which is the right one?" And the sun was very hot that day; and one of the ladies, according to tradition, who was with Helena, had a sunstroke and dropped over; she either became unconscious or died. We can't prove which happened; at any rate, according to one story she died; according to another she was quite ill; but they said, "Here's a chance to find out which is the right cross." So they put her on one of the crosses, and she didn't stir or move; they put her on the second cross, she didn't stir or move. They put her on the third, and she jumped up full of life and vigor as ever. They said, "That is the true cross!" And so they took and cut it in pieces, and sent them to churches throughout the Empire; and today you will find in churches in Europe and Asia enough pieces of the true cross to build a battleship. I don't know whether they all come from that one cross or not. But at any rate, they decided that that was the place where the resurrection was; that was where Jesus was buried, and right near it was the place where he was crucified; and Constantine himself built a church there, the Church of the Resurrection.
And there is today a church at that place, which they will tell you goes back to the days of Constantine. Now the church of course has been repaired and repaired, off and on through the ages; but I don't think there's any question that this is the spot that Constantine's mother thought was the place where the crucifixion and the resurrection occurred. And that is only 300 years after it occurred, which is a long, long time when you think of it. If I was to ask one of you, if I would say, "This is 1959; back in 1659, there was somebody in this area; Let's see; that would be before William Penn came, wouldn't it? Well, we'll say in 1659 some noted explorer came through here, now you go out and find the spot where he had his camp here in the Philadelphia area." You'd have a tough job finding it; 300 years is a long time. But there are many other traditions in Palestine which began centuries after this. From our viewpoint it's a very long time ago, and that place is still the place where most people who bear the name of Christian think is the spot where the crucifixion and the resurrection occurred. They call it today the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
[student] Yes, I will fully agree with you, that in general people might then be in a position much better than today to know what happened in an area. But when you think of this area—this particular area—these events happened I would say 30 AD; forty years later the Romans came; the army marched across; the people fled in terror; thousands of them were shut within the walls of Jerusalem for a period of a couple of years; finally the Roman soldiers broke through the wall, killed thousands, sold the rest into slavery, burned and destroyed everything they could find. Well, there would be very few people who would remember. There would be terrible devastation. Then 60 years later, in 130, a group of Jews made an insurrection; they speedily built new walls around there; again they resisted the Romans; and again, after a great battle, every one of them was killed; and everybody else in the area would have had to flee, thousands of them being sold into slavery. So with all these upheavals and things, it certainly would be very difficult for things to be remembered like that. It was an unusual situation.
100 years ago there was an Englishman named [Charles George] Gordon—a very earnest Christian—who went to Jerusalem and who picked out a new place which he thinks is where the resurrection occurred; and he thinks it's also where Calvary occurred. They call it Gordon's Calvary, now—the place he picked—and the tomb that Gordon found, they call the Garden Tomb, it being in a garden; and he is quite sure that this is the right place and not the place that Constantine's mother picked.
Dr. William F. Albright, when I was there with him, made this statement; he said. "There is no evidence whatever to disprove that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre occupies the place where Calvary and the Tomb of Christ were; and yet it may not be. There is no evidence to prove in favor of Gordon's Calvary or the Garden Tomb being the right place; and yet they may be." In other words, we don't know. We don't know at all; but we have one tradition going back a hundred years, and one tradition going back 1500 years; and as between the two we have no way to be sure. It may be some place entirely different. Unless of course, you're sure that that lady really did come to life who touched the cross. If so, of course, that would settle it.
[student: Outside the city wall?] Yes, on a hill outside the city. I was never there when the wall was there that was there in the time of Christ. The wall that was there in the time of Christ was destroyed. A new wall was built. That was destroyed. During the middle ages, other walls were built. You go to a place which archeologists believe is David's capital, but it is outside the present wall of Jerusalem. Those things move from time to time. When you look at the center of Philadelphia in the early days, where is it? It's down in the wholesale region of Philadelphia. It was a little bit of a town down in that section—the wholesale district—and the centers that have been important the last hundred years in Philadelphia were just open fields for the first hundred years.
Cities move and change and all that; and then you take that, plus all these wars, they make it very difficult, in a place like Jerusalem, to tell anything from the appearance today, of what it was like 2000 years ago. If you're in a place where there isn't much in the way of settlement, it's different. Up in Galilee there were much smaller places. And not nearly so much destruction, so it's much easier up there.
Well,
this is an interesting subject—the identification of places in Palestine—which
we could spend a month on, a very interesting month; but it's a comparatively
minor part of church history. The important thing is the increased interest in
it, by the activity of Constantine's mother. But we should mention what is, I
think, of much more importance than what she did.
(3). Eusebius' Onomasticon. You all know how to spell Eusebius; put an apostrophe at the end of it: Eusebius' Onomasticon. Any of you who know Greek immediately recognize it, for the word Onomasticon means "name book." And Eusebius' Onomasticon is a fine work that Eusebius did, among the many scholarly works he did. He went through the Bible and listed all the place names of the Bible. And Eusebius tried to identify the places; so he wrote out a list of the places where things happened in the Bible, and then he gave a little comment; and he would say, "There is a town named such and such; it is just next to the road from such a place to such a place, the place where this thing happened in the time of David," and thus he gave us the best information he could from the study of the Bible and of Palestine as it was then, as to where these places were; and Eusebius' Onomasticon was a great help to us in the study of Palestine. Of course, he'll say, "It's right next to the road," and you know how roads change.
I was out there in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, two weeks ago; and I came to a country road—a part of which was torn down to make an airport—and they had torn up the road absolutely and closed it up; and then you go on past that; and you go on this country road which goes to a couple of farm houses; no car ever uses it except going to a farm house there. It's practically a deserted road; and you see a poster up there, it says "the Lincoln Highway." This is the Lincoln Highway connecting New York with San Francisco; and this highway was made only thirty or thirty-five years ago, to be the great highway across the country; and today it's just a deserted country road; and nine-tenths of the people who travel across from New York City to San Francisco don't come within 20 miles of it. And that change here in thirty years; think what would happen in 300.
A
road gets changed; things like this happen; people don't even notice; they
don't write it down; they pay no attention to these little changes that take
place, little changes one after another. If that's so in 30 years here, think
what happened in 2000 years in Palestine. So a tradition that goes back to 300
years after Christ is of real value, because much less changes took place in
that time than have since; but still, these were years of great commotion and
upheaval and many changes had taken place, undoubtedly. Well, Eusebius' Onomasticon is of great value in the
study of Palestine. But we must go on to an entirely different sort of subject,
5. The Donatist Schism. I have already mentioned to you the Donatist schism in connection with our examination of the persecution; and I mentioned something of the causes of events; but they are not at present of such great interest to us. They will be later on; we'll come back to them again a hundred years later. But what is of interest to us now is the Donatist schism in relation to Constantine.
I mentioned to you that in Carthage there was a sharp division between the people who stood true in the persecution: "We are the church; and let's not let anybody back into the church without an extremely careful examination of any who lapsed into unbelief or denial of the faith." And there were those which said, "No, we are all weak sinners; none of us are perfectly sanctified; we give honor to those who have stood in this test; but many of them have failed in other tests. We feel that a person should give evidence of real Christianity; but we should not be too severe with those who repent of their sin, and say that in the midst of the terrible fears and the tortures, they denied the faith; and they repent and want to be received back; we should be more forgiving towards them, remembering our own weakness."
Well, there was a difference; we can't go into the details of it, but when in 311 the Bishop of Carthage died—his name was not particularly important to you—Mensurius was his name; his Archdeacon was called Caecilian, and he was chosen Bishop of Carthage; and when Caecilian was chosen Bishop of Carthage, he was consecrated by a man named Felix, the Bishop of Aptunga. But it is vital that you remember what happened.
There's the bishop, there's the archdeacon, and there's the bishop of another town in Africa, who consecrated the man whom the people of Carthage had selected to be the next bishop, who was the archdeacon of the previous bishop. Now there was a strong group in Carthage which opposed his election; a wealthy woman was their chief supporter; and these people declared that he was not the right bishop; that Caecilian, they said, was a wicked man. They said that during the persecution, Mensurius the bishop sent Caecilian the archdeacon to the prison, with attendants armed with leather thongs, to drive away the people who approached with food and drink for the Christians who were in prison; and that some of the Christians died in prison because Caecilian and his attendants with leather thongs drove away the people who wanted to bring them food.
Well, it sounds fantastic; but if you get into any church split nowadays, you will speedily find that it is fantastic because human nature is fantastic; and stories just as crazy develop in practically every division that has ever occurred in the church. And how much of truth or not there was in it, we can't tell at this time. I simply quote it to show the depth of feeling. Well, now, the party that was opposed to Caecilian declared that Caecilian was not worthy to be bishop; and as a great climactic reason for this declaration, they declared that Felix of Aptunga, who consecrated him, was a traditor. And they said a man who is consecrated by a traditor cannot be a real bishop; and that was one of their great accusations. The man who consecrated, Felix of Aptunga, was a traditor during the persecution; he gave up the sacred books. Now whether Felix said, "No, I never gave up any books at all," or if Felix said, "Yes, I gave them some books, but they were Greek classics; they had nothing to do with the Christian faith," and the brutal soldiers didn't know the difference. What the details were we don't know; but what they said was he is a traditor, and hence could not consecrate a true Bishop.
Now the opponents of Caecilian sent to the new Emperor Constantine, and they said, "Constantine, these people have elected a Bishop illegally because he is a wicked man, should not be bishop. They had him consecrated by a man that was a traditor. Tell them that they must put him out of the bishopric and have a true Christian as bishop." And Constantine, who was up in France at the time he received the message, didn't want just to go by the opponents of Caecilian who asked him to do this; he wanted to do what was right. So he asked three bishops from France and fifteen Italian bishops to form a commission, with the Bishop of Rome as chairman of the commission, to hear both parties at Rome, and make a decision. The committee heard what was said by both; they investigated as well as they could; they declared that Caecilian was the Catholic party, and that the other group was wrong in their accusation; and the others said, "No, you cannot say that, because Felix was a traditor." And the Emperor sent orders to the proconsul in Africa to make an investigation there; was Felix a traditor? And the proconsul sent back word that he had made a thorough investigation; that Felix was not a traditor; but that some of the men who were accusing him had been themselves traditors. That is the report which Constantine got back; so Constantine sent word; this has been fairly examined; the true Bishop of Carthage is the man who had been elected properly—Caecilian. Now the other group said, "No, that is wrong; they chose one of their number, who they said should be bishop; they consecrated him bishop; he soon after died and was succeeded by another man named Donatus; and the group is called the Donatists, after this man Donatus. That is a name we will hear a considerable amount of, about a month from now. Donatists. So it is a name I wish you all to remember.
The Donatists are the group in Africa who opposed the man who was elected Bishop of Carthage; they appealed to Constantine; and when Constantine decided against them, then they said, "Well what right has the Emperor got deciding church matters anyway? This is matter for the church; the Empire has nothing to do with it. We've got rights; we're going ahead"—a very reasonable position, but not a very reasonable thing to do after they themselves were the ones who had appealed to the Emperor. So that that is the position they took, and they pushed ahead. Constantine gave orders that they should recognize the true bishop; but when they resisted it, and in fact a group of them fought against the forces that tried to introduce it, Constantine makes no further effort; and let them free to push on.
There was a group of these Donatists, according to the writings on it—all of which of course were written by their enemies—there was a group of these men which continued for over a hundred years; who were called Circumcelliones, men who wandered around. They called themselves Christian Catholics; and these men gathered quite a large number of discontented persons; they wandered about the countryside, and they forced people to join with them; and they didn't carry swords because they said Jesus commanded Peter to put up thy sword; so they carried clubs, so people would do what they told them. Now that's what their enemies tell, but it's a story you'll find in a good many different writers. These were Donatists; but as to how great an extent you should blame them on the Donatists, I don't know. Of course, we have no Donatist writings today. But the enemies of Donatist have told about them; and this is one of the things they tell.
St. Augustine said a century later, that when the Circumcelliones said, "Praise be to God," people feared them more in the outlying districts than if they heard the roar of the lion. Again that's the story that their enemies tell about them. You might say, we have nothing from them; but that is the reputation they got. And our interest in them is Constantine's attitude. We continue there next time...
We
spent more time on the beginning of the Donatist schism than we should have.
Our interest was to know the attitude of Constantine toward it; and how that
developed; and how in the end he simply ignored it and let it go on. But how it
began is important because of what we come to a century later.
6. Constantine's Social Legislation. The Modernists like to talk about the importance of improving the world in which we live. They put all their stress on what they think is social improvement and methods for human betterment. Many of the methods which they present are of course simply of erroneous ideas of what sort of a world we ought to have. Many of them are affected by communistic or socialistic ideas. But a substantial part of that for which they push and about which they talk is good. The fact however, that they overlook is that the social improvements which have come to pass in the world have been overwhelmingly a by-product of the presentation of the Gospel and of its extension.
If you would pick out the greatest social improvements that occurred in the western world in the last three hundred years, you would find that in 90% of the cases, the force behind it was someone who was a strong evangelical presenting the Word of God and leading souls to the Lord; and as a byproduct improving social conditions. The Modernists talk about social improvement, but it is the true Christians who carry it on; and nothing perhaps makes this more obvious than to compare Christian civilization—with all its faults—with civilizations untouched by Christianity. In the Roman world, with all its good culture, with all of its fine qualities, there is much that we can admire about the great Roman Empire; but with all of that, there was a hardness toward human beings; there was a cruelty toward human beings, which goes far beyond anything that can be found in any even nominally Christian country since that time.
Now we will not have time to look into details of this; but it is a matter of fact, with which you should certainly be familiar, that Constantine the first Christian emperor, the first Emperor to favor Christianity, not just to tolerate it, but to favor it, introduced laws into the Empire which did more to alleviate the condition of the average person than anything that has been done by any six Emperors put together before his time. Criminals and debtors had been treated with extreme cruelty before; and Constantine insisted upon a great amelioration of this. Debtors were not to be punished by scourging, as had previously been always done. Accused persons weren't to be imprisoned in dungeons without light, or unnecessarily loaded with chains. He did a great deal to improve conditions in this regard. Slaves had to a large extent been treated previously as if they were simply chattel—simply bits of property that could be treated as the master might desire. Constantine forbade that the master should break his slave's legs or crucify them; any such treatment must be done by the State for crimes—not by the master because of his idea of the slave's attitude.
He made a law that the families of slaves could not be divided up, with some being sold in one direction and some in another. He made very great improvement in the conditions of slaves. In most heathen countries, it was common practice that if people had unwanted children, they did what is called "expose" the child—a very mild term for a very terrible thing. It meant to throw the child out where the wild beasts could get it, or where it would quickly die of exposure. And among the Romans who had several wives and a number of concubines it was a very common practice for them to get rid of their unwanted children in this way. Often to the great misery of the mother who wanted to keep the child. Constantine made a great step toward abolishing this practice. There had been nothing done against it before. People considered it perfectly all right to do. He did not do away with it, but he made a good substantial step in that direction; and a later Emperor, a few decades later, made it a crime to expose children in this way.
The laws regarding marriage were made very strict under Constantine. In general the pagan attitude had been to take marriage very lightly; and there was a tremendous amount of promiscuity in the pagan world, against which Christianity had reacted very strongly; and Constantine made laws enforcing the importance of the marriage bond; some of these laws seem to us to be very stern, very strict; but they certainly were a move for the better, compared to the great laxity which previously was characteristic of the Roman world. Then of course, he made laws which were beneficial to the Christian church. He made it capable of receiving legacies; he exempted the clergy from obligations of certain civil duties; he seems to have exempted the lands of the clergy from taxation; and in 321 he made a law ordering that the first day of the week be kept as a holiday—as a day of rest. This was not religious; no pagan was forced to observe the Christian Sunday; but all were given the opportunity of rest on this day of the week; and that did give a public recognition to that day which was the day honored by the Church.
These are only a few examples of the many ways in which Constantine impressed upon the laws; he made it his desire to carry out Christian principles, and to think of the welfare of the people far beyond what had been done, even by the noblest of the pagan emperors. When we compare the character of Constantine with the character of an occasional Roman Emperor like Titus or Marcus Aurelius, there can easily be those who will say that Titus or Marcus Aurelius was a finer man, a nobler man, a kinder man than Constantine. If we say that, we must note the fact that these men became Emperors through no effort of their own. Titus was the son of an Emperor, Marcus Aurelius had been selected by Antoninus Pius and adopted by him to be the next emperor. Both of these men were men of great nobility of character, Titus and Marcus Aurelius; but a substantial part of their nobility of character consists in a kindliness which may border in some ways on softness, a quality which can be had by a man in their situation, but a man of their type would never have fought his way to the top of the Roman Empire as Constantine did against the terrible obstacles which he faced. He was a man who, as we have noticed, faced almost insuperable obstacles to his advance, and overcame them with tremendous effort and tremendous energy, and a tremendous amount of fighting; and a man like that usually is naturally a very aggressive sort of a fellow; yet if the Spirit of God touches him, it can make a great change in his attitude and his heart; but a man who doesn't have to do that sort of thing can often appear kinder and nobler.
Which is the better in God's sight? The Lord judges and not we. But a man like Titus or like Marcus Aurelius never could have fought his way to the top as Constantine did, and made himself supreme in the Roman Empire, without having it handed to him as they did. Constantine did that, but he was touched by the Gospel, tremendously affected by it; and he tries to carry out its principles in his legislation.
And
the life of the ordinary person was tremendously benefited by the laws and by
the activities of Constantine, beyond any man before his time. I feel that it
is a great mistake for a real Christian to devote his life to social improvement
of any sort. I think that winning souls is of far more importance objectively,
and should be the main objective of any true Christian; but I do feel that
every Christian has a duty to think of his relation to the country in which he
lives; and to think of the ways in which he can be helpful; and to think of the
way in which his influence can contribute to making it a good country for
others to live in. And I do believe that it can be proven, if we examine
history, that whenever we have a real step forward in social conditions, a real
godly man or godly woman has been at the back of it. Now we'll go on to 7,
which we will merely glance at and pass it by for the moment. The reason for
that is that chronologically it should be dealt with now, but that it is so
important that we're going to give a separate full heading, so I want to
mention it here for the sake of completeness:
7. The Council
of Nicaea.
From a Christian viewpoint, this is one of the most important events in
Constantine's reign. From the viewpoint of church history, it is one of the
most important events in the whole history of the Christian Church. It is so
important that we will take it up separately as a later head, but I have
mentioned it here under Constantine, so I give it a title here and then put
under it in parenthesis (see next century).
8. The Founding of Constantinople. This is a secular matter, not a matter of church history, but it is a very important matter. Constantine visited Rome, which is the greatest pagan city in the world; although the Christian church was a strong element in Rome, it yet was a very small minority compared to the total population. Rome was also a very great pagan city; and the old pagan religion of Rome was so solidly established, with the great ceremonies, the great festivals, which played so important part in the life of the city, that it really was quite irksome to Constantine to be there. He was there, and when there would be some of these solemn heathen processions, he showed his dislike of it in ways that irritated the people. The mob began to yell and throw rocks and whatnot; and while the leaders recognized him as the Emperor, and knew there was nothing they could do against him—were anxious to be on good terms with him—yet he found many things in Rome very disagreeable to him. In addition to that, he had certain experiences in Rome, which things may have had to do with his leaving Rome—we will mention them very briefly under his character a little later; but at any rate, Constantine decided that the great Roman Empire needed a capital further east; a capital which would be further away from the natural line of inroads of the Barbarians, if they should be able to thread their way into the Empire, which they had been threatening for 300 years to do; one which would be nearer the East, where there were various forces, things that needed the Emperor's close attention constantly; and he wanted to form a new city to be New Rome, which would be a great new capital of the Roman Empire.
And for this he picked one of the finest spots in the world for such a city. A place on the border of two continents, where Asia and Europe come together with only a small body of water in between them, a little bridge between, the Galata Bridge. I've walked across it, in a third of the time it would take you to walk across the Delaware here; a small body of water there right at this spot, on the border of two continents; with its access to this port, going up north to the Black Sea, south into the Mediterranean. A very fine location for a great city, there was only one little town, a small town there which had been there for a long time, named Byzantium. Because Byzantium was there before, the Empire in later years was often called the Byzantine Empire; but the name of the place, Constantine changed to New Rome. This place he called New Rome, and with great ceremonies he set about to establish this as a new city there. He took the statue of Fortune to the city; which some people think was a heathen thing for him to do; held it in one hand, and held a spear in the other, and walked around the borders of the city in the famous well-established way of founding a new city; he established the borders personally, laid out the city according to a better plan than could be in a city gradually grown up like Rome had, and established a new city there which in a short time grew to be one of the greatest cities in the whole world.
He called it New Rome but others called it after him, the city of Constantine; and that name remains to this day, the city of Constantine in Greek, of course, is Constantinopolis, shortened in English to Constantinople; and the Turks have shortened it still further; they've changed to Istanbul, and so today the city is called Istanbul which is simply a Turkish shortening of Constantinople. And this city which Constantine founded is still today one of the great cities of the world; and it remained, after he established it, for nearly 1150 years, a great center of empire—a longer time than any other city in the world had been a great city of empire, till the Turks finally conquered it in 1453. So in secular history, it is a very important element in Constantine's life, the founding of this great city, this New Rome, this new capital for the Roman Empire.
For
us it is of importance because Constantinople—being the Emperor's
capital—played a very great part in Christian history from that time on; and
because we have so many important things that happened there; and because
Constantine's founding of the new Constantinople, instead of taking Antioch or
some other such city as his capital, unexpectedly proved to be a force in the
building up of the papacy. Rome could claim to be an older city than
Constantinople; to be a city to which apostles had gone and preached; which
Constantinople never could, because it wasn't even in existence at the time of
the apostles; and these contributed to the increase of the power of the Bishop
of Rome in later years. But of course, that's something that Constantine never
thought of at that time. We mention briefly
9. The Alleged Donation of Constantine. This is a name you'll find in later history quite frequently—the donation of Constantine—so we should know what it is. It is found in medieval books of 600—oh more than that—900 years later. The statement is made, that before Constantine left Rome he was taken with leprosy, and that the Bishop of Rome, Sylvester, cured him of his leprosy; and that in gratitude for that, Constantine gave Italy as a gift to the Bishop of Rome, to belong to him. That was the claim which the popes made in the middle ages—from maybe 1100 on—that Constantine had given them Italy; it belonged to them; they could rule it as they chose, because it was Constantine's donation to them. Now it's very interesting that, if you look in a good book of history like McSorley's, you do not find this statement made; you will find instead a footnote which mentions that the alleged donation of Constantine was proven in the 15th century to be a late medieval writing which had no relation to actual fact; but you will find that according to it, the donation of Constantine was that he gave the Pope the Lateran palace in Rome. That is a building which we call the Lateran, a building which you can still visit in Rome; they would show you the musical door, a door there which they just give a push, and as it moves it creaks; and the creak sounds, if you're very imaginative, you can imagine its musical sound, as metal squeaks on the other metal; various things like that in the Lateran palace. Well, this Lateran palace the Pope held after the time of Constantine; and it is guessed by historians that Constantine gave it to the Bishop of Rome; and that from that developed the story that he had given him sovereignty over all of Italy.
[student] He may indeed have given the Lateran palace to the Bishop of Rome; there is no proof he did. But we know the Bishop of Rome had it in succeeding centuries; he must have gotten it sometime. This is as good a guess as any—that he actually did give it to him. And it is a fact that 800 years later, the tradition was all over that he had given the Pope a present of Italy—to rule Italy. Well, it furnishes a natural beginning for such a story—if he gave him something—and the Lateran palace is a good guess as to what he gave him. The story about the leprosy is probably entirely a guess of a thousand years later. But this donation of Constantine we wouldn't even mention here except for the great part that it played in the later middle ages in enhancing the importance of the Pope. What did of course enhance the importance of the Pope was the fact that, although Rome was so well established as a great famous city, with so many of the wealthy noble leaders of the Roman Empire living in it or having their ancestral homes there; the capital was moved away; the Emperor was gone; and very soon it came about that the Bishop of Rome had an importance beyond any other individual living in Rome. It gave him a great importance in the city.
Now
in Constantine's city—Constantinople—the Bishop of Constantinople was always
overshadowed by the Emperor who was there. The Emperor would get irritated at
something the Bishop of Constantinople would do; it was the most natural thing
in the world for him to speak to him about it, and interfere with it. But Rome
was thousands of miles away. And the Emperor did not interfere much with the
Bishop of Rome. It contributed toward the development of the idea of the
importance of the Bishop of Rome.
10.
Constantine's Character and Achievements.
a. His Character. A few minutes ago, under another head, I discussed this sufficiently to give an idea of what I think of Constantine's character. The Greek Church called him "the equal of the apostles"—that is the title which they give—he of course was not a Christian leader of the type of the apostles; nothing of the kind. But he was a man who took a great interest in Christianity; and it would be possible for one to do so just from motives of policy; here was Diocletian seeing Christianity as such a great force, which the Roman Empire, if it were to be strong, had to destroy. Constantine, you might say, as a young man, saw the persecution, and the Christian Church surviving it; he said, "If there's a force so great the Roman Empire can't destroy it, let's join it; let's take it over and make it a bulwark of the Empire, instead of trying to wreck it and therewith wrecking the Empire."
An
argument can thus be made that his attitude was purely one of policy to
strengthen the Empire. But I don't think such an argument can stand completely;
he gives too many evidences of a real interest in Christianity. And while his
character was that of a man of the world; a man who shows the quality of
pushing himself, advancing, getting ahead, which are hard to reconcile with
saintliness of character, yet I don't think it can be doubted that his
character was greatly affected by his Christian principles. And that he had a
very sincere interest in Christianity. He was a great man; one of the great men
of the world's history; a man who left an impress upon the world, such as
comparatively few have done. And he was—I believe—a good man, and a man who was
sincerely interested in Christianity, though he was probably so busy with
affairs of state that he did not really listen closely enough to the sermons to
get an entirely accurate idea of what it was all about. He had certain
superstitious ideas taken over from paganism, which perhaps, he helped to bring
into the church; like when he dreamt he saw the sign in the sky, "by this
sign conquer," and various things like that in his life.
b. His Effect on the Christian Church. The effect of Constantine on the Christian Church is like the effect of any human being; there is something that is missing. There is no human being who is truly sanctified; no one aside from the Lord Jesus Christ was ever free from sin or free from error; and every human being, in his effect, has both good and evil resulting from his activity. Now this certainly was true of Constantine. Constantine freed the church from persecution; he gave it safety from that; he gave it a privileged place in the Roman Empire; he gave it the opportunity to move forward, to spread; to advance beyond any opportunity that it had had before. He took many Christian principles and put them into his legislation; he took Christian leaders and gave them an important place among his advisers; he certainly did much for the Christian church and the Christian movement.
On the other hand, the very fact that the Emperor favored Christianity inevitably had evil effects as far as Christianity is concerned. We have noticed before this—when the Emperors did not even favor Christianity, but merely showing a hands-off policy toward it—that many worldly people came into the church, and even got into positions of importance like Paul of Samosata. We noticed that worldliness and unbelief would creep into the church; and the church was purged of this in the previous 300 years by the great persecutions, which cleansed it of many who didn't belong in it; it frightened them into leaving the church; it drove people out of it who really didn't belong in it. Of course, it also caused many real Christians simply to be overcome by their fears, to deny the faith, also.
But the favor of the Empire had the opposite effect from that of the persecution. Many people who wanted to get ahead in the Empire saw that a good step for doing it was to join the church, and to pretend to be earnest Christians. Not only worldly people, moved by a desire for something good, but not ready to go the whole way and become real Christians and join the church; but worldly people who had no such desire, but thought they could be advanced in that way, often joined the church from this time on.
Inevitably, there was an influx of worldliness into the church from the Emperor's favor. And also of course, there was a dying out of the zeal of many toward the Lord. They were previously looking ardently for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, to set up his wonderful kingdom of peace and happiness on earth; now most people stopped looking for that. We already have a ruler who is going to set up peace and happiness on earth here. Why do we need to look for another from heaven? We have Christ in our hearts; we have him as our spiritual benefit; we have the Emperor to establish peace and happiness, and safety upon the earth.
So this concept grew and spread, about the earthly kingdom of God without the king himself being here; and this contributed to the development of the Roman Catholic idea in the middle ages—of a Kingdom of God on earth, with a Pope as the vicar of Christ on earth. So that there were both good and evil results from Constantine's acts; but I don't think he can be blamed for the evil results; they were a side effect of what he did.
The
Eastern Church for a long time called him saint—Saint Constantine. The Western
Church has never called him Saint Constantine. But they both recognize that he
was a man well-deserving of the title of Great—Constantine the Great. So much
for the effect on the Christian Church; and perhaps we ought to just take a
second to mention,
c. His Baptism. Probably here is where a bit of superstition was in his mind which had never been eradicated from it. But Constantine was convinced that sins could be washed away with baptism. Well, now he knew that he was in a situation where he often needed to do very brutal things; he had the power to do them; in fact his own son was killed under circumstances which it's pretty hard to take the blame away from him. We don't know the full details of it; there are those who say that Constantine was jealous of the popularity of his son; he had his son arrested, and accused of treason and killed. There are those who say that his mother Helena was disturbed at the way her favorite grandson had been done away with; that she blamed it on Constantine's wife; and it was the result of her constant criticism of the wife that led him to either order or permit that his wife be put to death. We don't know the details of it. But there is a very sorry story—whatever the details—just before he left Rome for Constantinople; this happened in Rome.
Constantine,
in the course of his life, did many brutal things; and he sincerely wanted the
Lord's pardon for his sins; but he felt that, since you could only be baptized
once; if you're baptized and your sins are washed away, and then you fall into
sin again, how terrible it would be. So he postponed baptism until 337 or 338—I
forget which—but that was the year when he saw that his end was very near. He
was ill; he was old; he saw that his life could not last long. He went and was
received as a catechumen, one receiving instruction in the church. He who had
presided at church assemblies. He who was considered a great patron of the
church. He now went, took on the simple dress of a penitent; he attended the
instruction; and then he was baptized, and the day following he died. So he had
only one day of sin after his death. So the baptism of Constantine took place
the day before his death; he died in the simple white garment of a penitent who
had just joined the church, with all his material emblems laid aside.
d. His Place in
Secular History and in Church History. It's pretty hard to separate these
headings; I think I discussed this fully under a previous one; but it's a very
important thing to understand, so we mention it in the outline. He had a very
important place in both secular and church history. He was the new founder of
the Roman Empire. Some say that actually Diocletian re-established order in the
Roman Empire, and Constantine simply took advantage of what Diocletian had
done. That is partly true; Diocletian did much to re-establish the power of the
Empire. But Diocletian's clever scheme of the four rulers didn't work; and the
Empire probably would have fallen into chaos again completely if Constantine
hadn't come along then; he managed to take advantage of what Diocletian had
done, but to go beyond it and to establish the Empire on a solid basis.
Diocletian's idea of two Augustuses and two Caesars was forgotten. Constantine
was the only Augustus; and his son, when he was one year old—Constantine II—was
made into a Caesar; so you had a Caesar one year old. So Diocletian's idea of
two Augustuses and two Caesars was just forgotten. But Constantine established
things so that they lasted another 1100 years in the Eastern Empire, and in the
West another 150 years; that was no small thing—probably longer than most any
nation today, it lasted as a strong organization.
C. The Rise of
Arianism and the Council of Nicaea.
1. The Rise of Arianism. We have noticed in the previous three centuries the great forces outside the church which opposed it—like Mythraism, Manachaeanism, various gnostic movements, and Neo-Platonism. We have also noticed to a lesser extent the rise of heresy within the church; and most of this we have put under the heading of Monarchianism. Monarchianism as you remember was in the beginning of the third century—or at the end of the second—the title given to those who tried to hold the unity of God to so great an extent, that they either made Christ simply an indivisible part of the Godhead or made him a mere man. We noted the different types of Monarchianism, particularly Sabellianism, and we noted Paul of Samosata's relation to Monarchianism.
Now in those years, we must say this—the simple Christians read the Bible, and saw that Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." They saw that Jesus claimed to be God—before Abraham was I am; that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God; and the simple Christians from the very days of the apostles understood that Jesus Christ is fully God. There's only one God; there aren't three gods; there's one God; but he also understood that Jesus Christ is fully man; and that there is a real difference between Jesus Christ and God the Father. So there is only one God. Now you can't explain this; it's impossible to explain. But you can see the main lines of it; you can understand what the basic doctrine is; and true Christians have always understood the main lines of it, from the very beginning of the days of the apostles.
But during these centuries that we have already noticed, there were individuals who came forward and tried to explain it; and they explained it in such a way as to lose the true deity of Christ. And one of the strongest of these movements was the Sabellian movement. As we noticed, the followers of Sabellius held there was one God, but he manifested himself in different ways. In OT times he manifested himself as God the Father; in the times of the Gospels he manifested himself as God the Son; now he is manifesting himself as God the Holy Spirit, but it's just one person. There is merely a difference in the way he manifests himself.
Well, that is not Christianity. Christianity has this very difficult doctrine of the incarnation: that Jesus Christ is fully God; there is only one God, and yet Jesus Christ is a real man like we are; tempted in all points like we are; and yet without sin. And that is something that the pagans and the philosophers cannot understand and they have to deny.
And you even take a man like Karl Barth today; you read his epistle to the Romans, and it just burns with zeal and enthusiasm, the weakness of man and the greatness of God, and how man is absolutely worthless and sinful before God; and you read statement after statement and you almost feel you are receiving real evangelical teaching. But then you find that he says that Jesus was a sinner; that Jesus was weak; that his life, his death was an utter failure; that it represents total despair; it gives us the lesson that we can only despair in ourselves; it is only in God we can find victory, which of course is utterly opposite to what the Bible says about Christ. But Barth stumbled—as the pagan philosophers do—at any real incarnation; that really God became really man. Well, the philosophers were stumbling at that back in those days—that was the great barrier to coming into the Christian church.
So Arianism represents the core of Monarchianism, which is made as palatable as possible. It is made just as close to Christianity as you can get and still not be Christianity. It is made so close that many very real Christians couldn't see anything wrong with it at all. It is made so close that many of its followers were very earnest Christians and very fine Christians; and yet it stops at such a point that it fails to accept the real heart and center of Christianity.
I believe it was Thomas Carlyle who referred to the Council of Nicaea at which the two sides argued over whether Jesus was homoios—a similar nature to that of God—or whether he was homos—the same as God; and the difference in Greek is one letter, that little iota; and Carlyle said, "Imagine quitting the Christian Church on account of one little Greek letter. How perfectly silly, what utter nonsense."
But later on in his life, he said, "I take it all back." He said it was only one little Greek letter, but he said if the homoios had prevailed and the homos had lost out, he said Christianity would not have lasted more than a century or two more. The very heart of Christianity would have been taken out of it.
So
that Arianism is a matter which affects the very heart and center of
Christianity, as Monarchianism had before; but it is a very refined form of
Monarchianism, a form which is so refined as to deceive the very elect if that
were possible. Now, we're going on without the details of it; I'm giving you
just a general summary as an introduction to it.
a. Its Leader. Arius himself, who was he? He was a man who had studied in the school of Lucian in Antioch. When Constantine became well established in the Roman Empire, Arius was a man along in late middle-life. But Arius is now down in Alexandria, in Egypt. He's a man of considerable learning; he's trained in the school of Lucian. He is now living in Alexandria where he is a presbyter. He is in charge of one of the big churches in that great city of Alexandria. He's highly respected by the bishop; he's a man of very high moral life; a man who is considered as very saintly and looked up to and idolized by all his congregation—and particularly by the women—who look to him as a very great saint and a very noble Christian man.
Now Arius sees the problem of the pagans stopping at this point of incarnation; and he sees the point of the Jews, with their great stress on one God, thinking the Christians are holding two gods, and being held back from entering the Church by this; and Arius worked out a way of overcoming this; and he became so excited about it that he started telling everybody about it; and even writing little ditties, taking all the popular songs, putting into them words talking about the nature of Christ; using the popular songs of the music halls of the day for music for it; and it spread all over the Empire like wildfire, but we'll have to wait till tomorrow to speak further about it.
Now we were speaking yesterday about C, the rise of Arianism and the Council of Nicaea; under that we looked at 1, the rise of Arianism, under which we had a, its leader. We noticed that Arius was an elderly man—late middle age—a man who was a presbyter; who was in charge of his church in Alexandria; greatly honored for his piety, and doubtless a man who felt that he was doing service to the cause of Christ by removing an obstacle for pagans and Jews to come to Christ through their inability to understand how Jesus could be both God and man. He stressed the fact that God was the only one who is from all eternity—God the Father. Now Christ he made just as great as he possibly could make him, without making him the one who had existed from all eternity. And when he thought he had the answer—he thought he had the explanation—he immediately became anxious to have everybody know it; and he not only preached about it; told people about it; wrote letters about it; but he made little poems about it; he made little songs the weavers could sing as they were working at their weaving; songs for sailors to sing as they rowed their boats; songs for all sorts of people to use as they carried on their daily activity; taking the tunes were used in ordinary folk songs of the day, and setting words to them that describe the character of Christ as he understood it, in order to spread his views.
So
the leader was a man who was highly regarded as a man. But it is sad today to
find sometimes a man—highly regarded as a man—who may be right on most points,
but on some particular point he has an idea which is a bit off from ordinary
Christian emphasis; which perhaps wouldn't do a great deal of harm if he didn't
say much about it; but he is constantly harping on it and pushing it; and all
it does is a tremendous lot of harm. Now this idea of Arius' was not that sort
of an idea; it was quite a bit off from what is the true standard of
Christianity, probably much more than Arius himself realized. But he was
determined to push it in every conceivable way. That is a, its leader.
b. Its Background. I mentioned, when I began to speak about the rise of Arianism, the background of it, just a recapitulation. Monarchianism, as you know, was an attempt to explain the incarnation which had been in existence for over a century and a half already; but Monarchianism covers a range of ideas from Sabellianism—the idea that God is one who merely manifests himself in different ways—to the idea at the other extreme, that makes Christ simply a man upon whom God came with power; and there were these various types of Monarchianism, all through these three centuries; we have on the one hand the simple faith of the earnest Christian, who reads the Gospel, and says, "Jesus is God. Jesus is a man." Jesus is God. There is one God. Those things are clearly taught in Scripture. There is one God. Jesus is God. Jesus is a man; he is truly man; he is truly God. That is the simple faith of the man who reads the Gospels and believes what he finds. But the Monarchians' attempt to explain this resulted either in destroying the persons in the Godhead, as Sabellianism did, and made them simply a modal revelation of God in different ways; or it destroyed the deity of Christ.
And
now we have—what you might say—is Monarchianism reduced to the point where it
would seem to be the least possible harmful, and yet still Monarchianism.
That's what you have in Arianism. You have a view which exalts Christ
tremendously but which stops short of His full Godhead. Well, we'll discuss
that a moment then under
c. Its Views. The views of Arianism. The Arians exalted Christ. They used the highest terms about him; he was the one who had created the world. He was the one, he was God, he was the very God; he was God revealed in human flesh. He existed before all human beings. They would exalt Christ, and you will hear language they used; and the terms that they used which would seem to go just as far as a man could possibly go. But then they would bring out their particular points. They would say, nevertheless, there was a time when he was not. God the Father created Him; created Jesus Christ; but there was a time when He was not. But he was created before the creation of the world; and he was the instrument whom God used to create the world. He created the world; he created all things; he is God, he is God incarnate; he died for our salvation, but there was a time when he was not. God the Father created him; and people were walking down the street; carrying their bundles, humming and singing the words, "there was a time when he was not"; and so the followers of Arius, other people began to call them Exukontians, the ones who held that there was a time when he was not.
Now that's the first name they used for them; it didn't last very long; it's not particularly important, because pretty soon everybody was calling them Arians, but this first term was taken from "There was when he was not." That was a great point of their stress. God the Father created Jesus Christ. He is the firstborn of creation; he's in the image of God. He is very God, but there was a time when he was not; God the Father created him.
Now
Origen, in opposing Sabellianism—which denied the distinction of persons in the
Godhead—had stressed the passages in which Jesus said, "the Father is
greater than I," and he had stressed the words "only begotten of the
Father." Origen said he is begotten of the Father; but Origen said the
begetting of the Son occurs from all eternity; he was always being begotten;
there never was a time when he was not yet begotten. Of course, we can't understand
this concept; we can simply take what the Bible says. It says there's God the
Father; there's God the Son; but God the Father and God the Son are from all
eternity; there is no time when he was not. There's no such relationship
comparable to the relationship of a human parent and a human child at all in
it. Arius would turn to some woman and say, "Woman, you have a child,
don't you? Well, wasn't there a time when you were before the child was? How
could you bear a child if you didn't exist before the child? Well, if he's the
only-begotten of the father there must have been a time before the Father begot
him. Therefore, the Father must have existed before the Son." But this, of
course, is not what the New Testament teaches about Christ. So the Arians took
Monarchianism, and carried it into opposition to one aspect of Monarchianism,
Sabellianism—which gives up the distinction between Jesus and the Father; in
opposition to that, they carried Monarchianism just as far as they could while
still keeping its fundamental emphasis, that Jesus is not really God at all.
d. Its
Dissemination.
As I mentioned, Arius disseminated it in every possible way; and he used these
songs; he even wrote one very long poem which he called The Spiritual Banquet in verse, for the common people to learn,
read and recite, to put the ideas into their minds.
e. The Opposition to Arianism. The first opposition to Arianism comes from the Bishop of Alexandria. Bishop Alexander had been very favorably impressed with Arius for many years; but now, when he sees Arius going off on this tangent and becoming so excited about spreading his views, he is alarmed at it. He summons a Council to meet in Alexandria; gathered bishops from that whole area around there; he called them together; brings the evidence, and they vote that Arius and two bishops in Egypt who were following Arius' ideas should be excommunicated; they're outside of the pale of the true Catholic Church in Egypt. And he put forth encyclical letters signed by his clergy; and in these letters, that's where he called them heretics—those who believe there was a time when he was not; and he tried to spread the denial of Arius' views, but Arius kept on holding assemblies in Alexandria. But finding people pretty much opposing him, he left the city, and went to other places, beginning to spread his views.
I like the suggestion that is made that, where it says, that what we translate "the only begotten" in John 3:16, the Greek word could just as well be rendered, "the one type, one genus." He is the one type son; that is, he is his unique son; he is his one and only son, in the sense that he has no other son like this one. We are sons of God; but he is a unique son; he is the son of one type only; he is God the Son, who existed from all eternity; he has no other Son like this one. That is, the idea to me of the Father begetting the Son—I don't find anything in Scripture that really explains what is meant by that. He is "the firstborn of the Father," I would think of this as a figure of speech; he was not born, except when he was born of the Virgin—that is, in his incarnation—but in his eternal state: "in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He was in the beginning from all eternity; and I would think of it as a figure of his relation to the Father to call him the only begotten Son. Not that he ever was begotten in the sense in which a man begets a son. I believe that that translation has wrought much confusion to people. The view that Origen held, that there was a begetting, but it was a begetting which was always going on, and never had a beginning at all, is a view which gets around the difficulty; but it does so by inserting a concept that you just can't understand; you might as well accept it as it stands, without that added concept, it seems to me.
It is true that in the Old Testament the second person of the Trinity, the existence of Christ, and his future coming, are implied at many points; but not implied sufficiently clearly that we can prove it without the added knowledge of the New Testament. He was brought to our attention at a certain time in history; but that doesn't mean that he did not exist as a separate person, but one God, from all eternity. I wouldn't say that there was a time when God the Father, and God the Son did not know that there were three persons in the Godhead. I certainly would not say that. I would think that that was certainly clear from all eternity.
Well, the opposition came then from the bishops. Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria. And this letter which he sent out was signed by his clergy; and among the clergy who signed it there is a deacon, a young man whose name was Athanasius; and that is a name worth remembering. And he is a hundred times more important in church history than is Alexander, the man who was bishop at this time. Certainly one of the dozen most important names in all of ancient church history, Athanasius.
Now at this time we find the name Athanasius, a young man, a deacon; and we find later that Athanasius wrote a little booklet on the Trinity before Arianism ever began; in it he acknowledges very clearly the relation between God the Father and God the Son as taught in Scripture. Now nobody knew much about him or that book at this time. He was just a young fellow—hardly known—a deacon in the church under the Bishop Alexander; but later on, when he became important, people found that book; and they saw that his views were not developed in opposition to Arianism; he had thought the matter through pretty carefully before Arius ever came to public attention. He was a brilliant young man; a young man of such brilliance that the bishop was constantly calling on him for help; and pushing him ahead, though he was still only a deacon at this time.
[student]
The Bishop of Alexandria, yes, at this time was named Alexander, it so
happened. He is not a particularly important person in church history, although
he does deserve more attention than he gets because he did start the opposition
to Arianism. He saw the error; he began the opposition; but Athanasius soon
completely overshadowed him in importance. He was a deacon in Alexandria. This
writing that we know of by Athanasius was written before we know anything about
Arius; he wrote plenty of writings later in his life; but this first writing
that he wrote was simply a discussion of the Trinity; and it is interesting
that it shows a very clear understanding of the Gospel. He didn't simply
develop his ideas in opposing Arianism; he had his ideas clearly worked out
before, but later of course he wrote many books against Arianism.
f. Constantine's Attitude. The Emperor Constantine had given his support to Christianity; he said he saw a sign in the sky which said "by this sign conquer"; he proceeded to beat Maxentius, to make himself completely emperor in the West; his co-emperor in the East had started a new persecution about 319, which he carried on for a year or two. Constantine destroyed him, and he was now emperor of the whole Empire. He had tried to solve this schism in Egypt and had been unsuccessful. Now we find the welfare of Christianity menaced by something far greater than the schism in Egypt. Constantine finds that all over the Empire, people are discussing this; the Christians are lining up, for Arius or against Arius; discussing these views; getting very heated about it; there is a great deal of dissension on it; and even in the pagan theatres, they are making fun of the Christian division over Arius' views; they are bringing in allusions in the pagan theater to the question whether Jesus was in the beginning; or whether there was a time when he was not, and so on; and making Christians the laughing stock of the pagans; they don't know what they're laughing at, but they're ridiculing them.
So Constantine wrote a letter, which he sent, jointly to Arius and to Alexander; and Constantine said in the letter that he was more concerned about the confusion and disturbance that had come into the Christian Church than he would be about the rise of a rival emperor in the Empire. He felt that the well-being of the Christian Church was tremendously important; he was anxious to see it go forward, and so very much concerned about this; he said, "Arius and Alexander, you are looking into things that cannot be understood the human mind, trying to explain them, and making dissension and division," and he said, "You ought to stop this and unite to go forward for the cause of Christ."
So
he wrote this long letter and urged than to stop the controversy; but Constantine had no understanding
of what the real meaning of the controversy was; his purpose was good in this,
but it very soon became evident that it would not accomplish the purpose; that
there were very earnest Christians who felt that it was extremely vital that
Jesus Christ was God from all eternity; there never was a time when he was not;
and that there were others who were very prominent, who were energetically
pushing the other idea; and that something had to be done about the matter. So
he decided—now was it his own idea, or was it an idea which had been suggested
to him by one of his Christian advisers? So far as I know, we don't know. But
at least it was Constantine who made the decision; let's get the bishops of the
Christian world together, and have them discuss this matter, and decide what
the truth is regarding it. And so he called a council, which is generally
called the first ecumenical council. He called this council; picked the place
for its meeting; he announced he would pay the way there of all the Christian
bishops from all over the Empire, to come together to settle this matter. So
that leads us on to Nicaea
2. The Council
of Nicaea.
And under that
a. The Calling of the Council. This is the first ecumenical council, recognized as a general ecumenical council by all professing Christian bodies ever since, the Council of Nicaea, the first ecumenical council. This council is highly regarded by all bodies of professing Christians. Who called it? I received—one time—through the mail a copy of the religious section of Our Sunday Visitor, from someone in Wilmington who felt that it was a pious act to send copies of this Roman Catholic weekly paper to Protestants; so this was mailed in Wilmington to me in Wilmington there, with simply my address written on the wrapper; and inside was the religious section of Our Sunday Visitor, discussing the evidences that Roman Catholicism is the true church to which all Christians should belong. And I noticed in the magazine that there was a section of answers to questions; and here was a question presumably from some Protestant, "If the Pope is the head of the Church, what about the Ecumenical Councils which have had such a great authority and importance in the Church?" And the answer was given, "Every ecumenical council was called by a Pope; the Pope presided in every ecumenical council; and the decisions of the ecumenical council became valid because a Pope sanctioned them and gave them authority in every case."
Now that was a statement in the Sunday Visitor; but if you will look in the Catholic Encyclopedia you will not find that statement anywhere, because the Catholic Encyclopedia is a very scholarly piece of work; and in the Catholic Encyclopedia you will find the facts given, and maybe some explanation; but there's no alteration of the facts that I've ever known; and so no such statement of fact as that occurs in them. And anyone who knows anything about church history of the 4th century knows that no bishop of Rome had anything to do with the calling the first ecumenical council at Nicaea. It was called by the Emperor Constantine. He was the one who called it.
Now there are some somewhat scholarly writings—I forget whether it was the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia or not—which said that Hosius of Cordova presided as a representative of the Pope; but if you look in McSorley's history here, you merely read that Hosius of Cordova presided; there's no statement made that he was any representative of the Pope, because there's absolutely no evidence to substantiate any such statement. The Pope did not call the first council; the Pope was not present at the first council; the Pope did not preside at the first council; and so far as I know, nobody anywhere in the Christian world felt that the authority of its decision rested in any way upon on whether the Bishop of Rome approved them or not; and so McSorley avoids making any statements of fact which are not true.
There was no one that I know of at that time, who thought that there was a religious leader in Rome who was head over the Christian Church. That's purely an idea of a later time. Constantine was not in Rome particularly at this time; he spent most of his time in other places; occasionally he visited Rome; and he doubtless thought very highly of the Bishop of Rome, as he did of many other bishops; but there's no evidence that he considered him as in a supreme place. In fact, the two best friends of Constantine—as far as we know—were Eusebius the Church Historian, with whom he was on very intimate terms, and whom he took as a counselor in many respects; and this Hosius of Cordova. Cordova, as you know, is a town in Spain; and Hosius was Bishop of this town in Spain; and Hosius was a very close friend of Constantine. Hosius of Cordova and Eusebius of Caesarea were doubtless consulted by the Emperor; maybe one of them suggested it to him—I don't know—but the act was Constantine's. He said, here is a crisis facing the Christian church; let the bishops get together and decide what should be done. I will pay their expenses at the meeting. That's what he did. He said, let them come; he gave them the order; let them come to Nicaea. He picked a very fine place in Asia Minor; the name of it means victory; and at this place he said, let them come; we shall provide that the imperial transportation, that carries imperial couriers all over the Empire, will be available for the delegates, the bishops, to come to Nicaea.
And when they came, he gave them banquets; he presided at one of the meetings; he took a great part in showing his patronage of the assembly; but as to the decisions of the assembly, he left that up to the bishops entirely. I believe he felt as Emperor that he had a right to give any orders he wanted; but what he wanted was that the bishops should decide the matter, and see what the truth was in line with their understanding of Christianity.
Well, that was a, then, the calling of the council. It was by Constantine that it was done. And Constantine sent word all through the Empire; he invited the Christian churches and Christian people to come—the Bishops to come, that is—and to decide this matter. The representatives came; they included not only those from the Roman Empire, but they even sent word to Christians outside the Roman Empire; and there were representatives at the meeting even from Persia—Christian churches in Persia. There were not so many from Europe—that is from the Western part of the Empire. The great bulk of them were from the East; Hosius of Cordova—the emperor's friend and spiritual adviser—he was there and presided at most of the meetings; Caecilian the Bishop of Carthage, whom we have already mentioned, he was there. The Roman Bishop, who was quite along in years did not come; but he sent some presbyters who represented him.
There
were two presbyters there representing the Bishop of Rome; there were three
other bishops from the Western Church. Constantine had done everything possible
to make it easy for them to come, but they were all that came from the Western
Church. But from the East there were a great many. Alexander came, and brought
Athanasius with him. And Athanasius said there were 300 bishops at Nicaea.
Eusebius says more than 250—which of course is a safe statement to make. There
were others there who said there were 318, just like the number of Abraham's
servants when he delivered Lot. Well, maybe there were 318 at one of the
sessions, because the number varied up and down; apparently somebody noticed
that, and thought that was striking; but probably that was only on one or two
days About 300 was the number. Of course there were other people present whom
the bishops brought to assist them in the discussion. There were people who
came there on account of curiosity; there were some pagan philosophers who
came; they were interested in the discussion, and before the council met
engaged in discussion on various matters with some of the people present. So
much, then, for a, the calling of the council.
b. The Deliberations. The meeting started with banquets in which Constantine gave presents to the bishops and assured them of his favor; he told them of the great importance he attached to the Council; he said, you understand these theological matters; I cannot give you any direction as to what decision you make; that's up to you; but I want you to decide what is the Christian view and come to unity on this important matter so that the Christian church will not be in upheaval over it. And the people began discussing; and Arius and some friends of his presented a creed which declared their views, and asked that that creed be adopted.
And practically everybody there unanimously declared that that was not what they believed in; that that was not Christian teaching; that they did not want it; and Arius' creed was voted down overwhelmingly. Arius' creed said that Jesus was God; very God of very God; the creator of the world; the Redeemer of those who believed in Him; but that he was of a different nature from God the Father; of a different essence from God the Father; and there was a time when he was not. This was voted down and cast out; and the feelings of most of those present were so strongly against it that the bishops stopped saying anything in its favor. There were very few bishops who supported it; and they kept quiet from then on, as far as supporting the really Arian belief was concerned.
But now they continued to be active in the meeting; and there were those who tried to get a creed adopted which would leave the Arians freedom to hold their views; and they presented a statement which said that the son was of a similar essence to that of the father; and this of course is quite different from saying he was different, saying he was similar; it seemed to them to be going a very long distance. And Eusebius of Caesarea—who was sort of in the middle, though not a strong protagonist of either side at all—Eusebius presented a creed; and Eusebius said, "Here is a creed which I used as a boy; which is used in my church and used a great deal." And he said, "This creed would be good for us to adopt." And he presented the creed; and it was a very good creed, that presented the general attitude of Christianity very clearly and strongly; but it did not deal specifically with the points at issue; and here is his creed. He said he "believed in one God the Father, all father, creator of all things whatsoever, both visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word, one God, God of God, Light of light, Life of life, only begotten son, firstborn of all creation, begotten of God the Father before all the ages; by whom also all things came into being; who became flesh for our salvation; lived among men and suffered and rose again the third day and ascended to the Father; and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. We believe also in one Holy Ghost; that each of these is and subsists; the Father truly as Father; the Son truly as Son; and the Holy Ghost truly as Holy Ghost; as our Lord also says when he sends his disciples to preach: go and make all nations disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." Now that's the creed that Eusebius presented. And there was no one there who had any objections to anything that was in Eusebius' creed.
Athanasius and his people, who were so much against Arius, believed every word that Eusebius said in his creed. Jesus is Light of light, Life of life, God of gods, he was before all ages; it's fine. But the Arians also said we can vote for that; and so these people saw that it did not settle the points at issue. It was just a covering over of it; and then they could go on and have the same divisions they had had before. Eusebius presented his creed. He said here is a creed that we use in my church; he said, we've always used this; he said I used it as a boy; it presents the essence of Christianity, can't we unite on this? But it is true, you could take Eusebius' creed, and you could say Arianism is wrong; Jesus is God of gods, he subsists from all eternity. Arius is wrong.
But the Arians said, "All right, we can take that creed," and the Arians were spreading all through the Empire their little poems, their doggerel sayings, "there was a time when Jesus was not; God the Father is the supreme original God; Jesus was begotten; he was created, before all the world; but he is less than God the Father who created him. And they said, "This is not what Christianity is, what the Church believes,"
It's interesting to look at some of the books on this subject, and see how people today almost universally accept what the church historians say; that the difference between the two, while it might appear slight, is actually a difference which went to the very foundation of Christianity. And while there were many very, very real Christians who accepted the Arian view, that the Arian view, if presented and pushed and carried through, would in the end have meant the end of all that was really distinctive in Christianity; Christianity would simply become another branch of pagan philosophy.
[student: "How could the Arians accept it?"] Well, how could they? Sometimes you wonder how people can accept some things they do. But they said here, "he was begotten of God the Father before all the ages"; they said "yes, before all the ages, but then there was before that." "By whom also all things came into being"; they said "yes, all things came into being through him, but he came into being through the Father. There was a time when he was not." Now I'm just supplying what I imagine was said, in answer to your question; but Athanasius was horrified by the fact that the Arians were ready to adopt this creed. And there in the assembly, there were bishops there who had just one eye, because the eye had been torn out by the persecutors under Diocletian; others who had one arm dangling at their side because it had been twisted and mangled in the persecution of Diocletian; men who walked with a terrible limp because of the tortures they had gone through; these men who had come through the persecution under Diocletian were there acting in the Council of Nicaea. And these men said we want to be sure we really have Christianity; that we really have that for which we suffered; that for which many of our friends died; that we have the true teaching as contained in the Scripture. And it wasn't just the fact that Arius just got up and said, "Here's an idea; what do you think of it?" And people said, "Oh that's terrible! You get out!" Nothing like that. It was that Arius had been spreading these ideas throughout the Empire; and he and others had been spreading these poems, and advancing these ideas. They were so afraid about getting people to believe them; it was vital that the church as a whole decide: are these ideas true to the Bible or are they false ideas which undercut the foundation?
And so they suggested changes in the creed which made the language stronger; they saw everybody would accept them; and they decided, there's some way to explain these; and that went on till they suggested one change that the others wouldn't take; and on that one the others wouldn't cooperate. And they said, "Well now; here is a word that brings out the difference between Arianism and true Christianity." And so they made a few changes in the creed—in Eusebius' creed—quite a number; but there was one in particular: the statement, he is of the same substance as the Father; that statement the Arians could not accept; and so the difference between the semi-Arians, who held he was of a similar nature, and those who held that he was the same—that's the one letter in the Greek alphabet that makes the difference. But it made a difference of tremendous importance, which split the Roman world for another 80 years, but we'll have to leave that until next time.
We
were looking at number 2 under C. 2, The Council of Nicaea; a, the calling of
the Council; b, the deliberations of the Council.
c. The Homoousian Creed. I think it's more generally called the Nicene Creed. But this is a good way to designate it—the Homoousian Creed—because the outstanding feature of the creed was this word, homoousion, which means the same substance, or better, the same essence. It was translated into Latin, "substance," but "essence" would probably be a much better translation of it. The creed, as we noticed last time, was based upon the creed which Eusebius of Caesarea had known since he was a boy, had used it in his churches, which he said was a wonderful creed giving the true orthodox doctrine, and there's no fault anybody could find with Eusebius' creed except that it didn't solve the problem that was before them then.
And Eusebius presented the creed; and this creed, when it was read, sounded like a wonderful creed; but after they read it, it was obvious that the Arians were all perfectly ready to accept it; they had no difficulty with it. It says Jesus the firstborn of all creation; well, the Arians said this doesn't necessarily mean that anything more than that he existed before other things were made. There may have been a long time when God was before the Son was. It said he was the only begotten son; well, the Arians could accept that. It said he was begotten before all worlds; they had no difficulty with that. The Arians were able to accept everything in this creed; and Athanasius, the deacon from Alexandria, and the others who were standing with him, felt that it is not simply a matter of getting some words we can all agree on, but of making clear that we believe in the full deity of Christ; that we stand for what the Scripture teaches; that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. That Jesus Christ is fully God, and that he is fully man.
Of course, in the Arian creed he was neither one. Because the Arians believed that God made him before all the world; and yet that there was a time when he was not; that he was not really God. And the Arians believed that he simply took human flesh; and so that it was really this one that was created before the world—who created the world—who was walking in Galilee; he wasn't a real man, there was no human soul there. So it really denied his humanity; it made him something that was neither God nor man; not being really God, he could not be our Redeemer; not being really man, he could not be our Savior. So it really destroyed at both ends the real effectiveness of Christianity. Athanasius, and a few others in the Council, could see this clearly. The great bulk of the Council probably were thoroughly orthodox in their views; but they did not see the need of any great excitement about this; they were perfectly content to go ahead as they had been. While another group—a very small minority—was definitely Arian and wanted a teaching which they thought would be easier for the pagans to accept and to become Christians.
It reminds me of the time when I first went to the University of Berlin; and arriving in Berlin, I went to a hotel where I stayed the first day; and there I met two people, whom I continued to know for the next year there. One of them was a graduate of a Presbyterian Seminary, and a Presbyterian College; he had been very orthodox when he first went to college, but he had gradually lost half his faith in college and the other half in Seminary. And he came out believing that God is a symbol for ethical values, just as Uncle Sam is a symbol for the United States; but believing that the church is wonderful thing, and had a tremendous love for the church and desire to advance the church. He was tremendously interested in the church, a very, very nice fellow. He had a fine Christian background, a very earnest character, but he had no Christian beliefs left that I was able to find.
The other fellow whom I met there was a man who was a devout atheist. He did not believe in any God, but he had certain ethical principles that he stood to very highly. One was: he did not believe that any animal should die so he could live, so he would not touch any meat. He was very strict on certain ethical principles, he held to; but a very strong avowed atheist. Now I had many good times with the atheist; a man of real culture; a man of fine character. I had many good times with him, but I clearly recognized as he did too, that our religious views were at opposite poles.
But I remember the first time the two of them met. And the liberal fellow told me a little after: "My!" he says, "I wish we could get that fellow into the church." He said, "The church needs men of his culture." And he was anxious to get the atheist into the church. I was anxious to get the atheism out of the atheist, so that he could become a Christian and be one whom we would be glad to have in the church. But the attitude was very different. Now the attitude of some of the Arians certainly was, "Let's get the pagans into the church; let's get their culture; let's get their philosophical learning; let's get their fine high ideals; let's get them in; and let's make our doctrine just as easy as we can for them to accept." While the attitude of Athanasius was, "Here's what the Bible declares: here is the great central teaching of our doctrine; let us stand upon those and try to get people to make a clean break with unbelief, and to accept them as they come wholeheartedly with us." And the mass of the Council did not think clearly on the matter, but I believe they were really orthodox in their fundamental viewpoint. And so the overwhelming mass of them tore up the Arian creed; would have nothing to do with it when the Arians presented the creed; but when Eusebius presented his creed, which was a good creed and everything in it was thoroughly Christian, they were well satisfied with it.
But Athanasius and his friends saw it did not meet the needs of the situation; because the Arians were trying to get a change into the attitude of the Christian church; a change which would eventually have destroyed its Christian character; and they were willing to accept this. It was not clearly enough made to bar them out. Well, Eusebius said this creed is the words of Scripture. This word you want to put in—homoousion—there's no such word in Scripture "of the same nature." And Athanasius said, "That is right; there's no word in Scripture that exactly expresses these ideas in one word. But there is a fundamental teaching in Scripture that is clearly expressed. And we need to take this teaching, and see exactly what it is, and find a word that will make it so clear that it will be obvious whether a man really stands for true fundamental Christianity or not." And so Hosius of Cordova stood with Athanasius on this; and some of the other men stood with him. The Bishop of Alexandria, who had originally excommunicated Arius, stood with him. And the Council was persuaded to adopt the Nicene Creed. This creed started with Eusebius' creed, and added certain statements that made it absolutely clear that he was God of God, Light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, being of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made. And then it ended by saying, "that those who say there was once when he was not; and before he was begotten he was not; and he was made; or maintain that the Son of God was of different essence or created or subject to alteration, these doth the catholic and the apostolic church anathematize."
So this was adopted, this creed of the Nicaean council; and Constantine the emperor had not been trying to exert any influence whatever upon the Council as to what decision it should make. His attitude was, let the bishops get together and decide the matter, but let them decide it. So when he saw the majority swinging more and more toward this, he began exerting influence toward getting a unified view. So his influence was an important factor in the Council, not to present a viewpoint but to get a unanimity on the viewpoint which seemed to represent the majority: the creed presented by Eusebius with certain modifications made in it; but that was the foundation, and then these modifications were made, which went all through it and made absolutely clear its strong stand on the deity of Christ which was clinched by this word of "one essence" with the Father.
But this creed, having been adopted, Constantine then said, "Now I wish all the bishops would sign the creed; and they proceeded and all but two signed it—some of them with misgivings, some with mental reservations. Eusebius of Caesarea wrote a letter to his congregation, explaining why he signed it; he tried to show that the additions made in it made no change from the creed he'd always used; they made some things a little clearer that he thought were already taught there; he did not think there was any vital change in it, and that's why he signed it. But he wanted them to understand that he wasn't going back on his old creed, and showed why he made the change. And he had opposed making some of these changes; he thought they already were sufficiently clear in the creed they already had.
But there were two Egyptian bishops who stood with Arius who would not sign it. And Constantine said, "Well then, I'm going to order these two bishops into exile; they are to go into a distant part of the Empire where they will not have any more influence in the place where they are known with their people." So he exiled these two bishops, and he exiled Arius himself, and one or two others; and Constantine ordered the exile of these people so that they would not disturb the peace of the church any more. Constantine felt the matter was settled; they were not going to have this agitation, this discussion, this great upheaval. All but these two bishops have signed it; the church can go forward, standing on a solid basis, without being torn by this difficulty any more. That was Constantine's attitude.
[student: "Did some Arians sign this creed—those that were originally with Arius?"] There were some who had originally put their influence with Arius, but just how thoroughly they put it with him it's hard to say. They would say we were not standing with him in his errors. And of course we can't get into their hearts to see which of them had been misled by him, and which of them really believed with him and perhaps...
[student] Constantine originally had written a letter to Arius and Alexander, in which he said this is a strife over words; it's a matter nobody can understand anyway; why should you agitate about it? I believe it's sufficient to announce this is what Christianity is. He did not claim to be able to understand it. But Constantine did preach in his palace: he would get up and would give sermons on Christianity as he understood it; on points of Christian ethics and so on; and, though he wasn't baptized until the day before he died, he often preached and was understood to be one who considered himself to be a Christian; and of course the bishops highly honored him in all kinds of grave declarations about his character and his saintly leadership—which went way beyond the facts—and yet he was a great and good man, who was doing his best to further Christianity as he understood it.
But he'd have been better off without all the applause and praise which they were giving him. Well, the Homoousian Creed, then, was accepted; Constantine thought this matter was at an end.
We
just want to mention briefly other acts of the Council,
d. Other Acts of
the Council.
While these 300 bishops were together, they naturally proceeded to deal with
other matters. This was the most important one; this was the matter for which
they were gathered; but being there, other things were brought up.
(1). The Melitian Schism. One of them was the Melitian Schism. Now this is not particularly important in itself; it is more important just to know what happened about it. The Melitian Schism was a schism which had occurred in Egypt, when, during the persecution, the leading bishops there were either in prison or in hiding; a bishop who had fled from another place, came in there and he began ordaining new bishops for the different towns, whose bishops were either in prison or in hiding. And there were certain differences in viewpoint, particularly about the treatment of the lapsed; but the main thing now was the matter that there were two men claiming to be bishops; and of course the claim was that, here's the catholic church, the church of which Alexander is the bishop in Alexandria and these that stand with him. There are these others claiming to be bishops, but there was no claim of a difference of doctrine. And the council decided that the men who were in the catholic church; the men who were in communion with Alexander; should be recognized as bishops, but that the other should be recognized as an associate. That when one of them died, the other should take over as bishop. They tried thus to make a conciliatory arrangement, to bring them together and put an end to the schism; and it did put an end to the schism.
[student]
The thing was that they had a bishop in every town. If they had a city like
Alexandria with maybe 20 churches, they'd have one bishop for all the churches
there. If they had a town with 150 people in it, of whom 50 were Christians,
the bishop would be over this church. Every town had its own bishop. And in
Egypt there were many towns where this bishop from outside of Egypt, during the
persecution, had ordained new bishops; and now the persecution was over. and
the regular bishop came back; and this man claimed he was the bishop. So these
men were standing together, and they were called Melitians, after Melitius the
man who had ordained them. And it's not particularly important—the schism
itself—but it is interesting to see what the Nicene Council did with it—how
very, very mild they were. They took the position, we'll recognize all of
these, and just gradually let the ones that survive be the bishops; there'll be
one in each place. That was the attitude they took on the Melitian bishops; but
in later years, the Melitians threw their influence with the Arians.
(2). The Matter of Easter. Then the second act of the Council that we mention here is the matter of Easter. The Council decided that the Roman custom should be followed with relation to Easter. You remember, there had been a controversy for over 200 years. Most of the Eastern bishops wanted to take the day of Passover—the Jewish Passover—for the day of the crucifixion, and then have Easter right after it. While the Bishop of Rome, and many of the Westerners—felt we should have a Sunday after Passover, a different day for our Easter; and remember the crucifixion just before Easter. So that was the Easter controversy: which would determine it, the Jewish Passover, or a certain Sunday? Would they determine the Resurrection, and then observe the crucifixion just before; or follow the Jewish calendar for the crucifixion, and then observe the Resurrection right after that? And Constantine said, "Why should the Christian church be tied to the Jewish calendar?" And most of them felt that way, by this time.
And also it certainly was less confusing to have it be on a certain day of the week; so the Roman custom was adopted and has been followed by most of the churches ever since. We set our Easter every year, to be a day following the Jewish Passover; and so I believe—if I remember correctly—they take the Spring Equinox, which is March 23, then you take the first Sunday; no, I forget the exact formula, but it's sort of a complicated formula, so it could be any time within about six weeks. But if you know the formula you can easily decide when Easter is any year. The simplest way for us, of course, is to look at the calendar, see what the date is.
[student] Well, of course, the thing is, true to what? The Jewish calendar?—the Eastern idea is truer to the Jewish calendar. The Western idea is truer to the solar calendar. You see, the Jewish calendar doesn't follow the sun; it follows the moon. They have twelve months in a year; and every once in a while they insert an extra month, so that they keep it more or less the same. So it's a moon calendar, while the Western world follows the sun calendar; and we are following the sun calendar. We're not following the Jewish calendar, but the sun calendar. That's really what we're doing. Also it's putting the stress on the Resurrection rather than on the Crucifixion. Of course they're both important; so in a way, it doesn't matter which you put the stress on, but we ought to remember both. It really isn't very important. There's no harm in determining Easter by the Passover; but if we're going to, we ought to determine Christmas by the Jewish calendar too; and then sometimes that would make it in November, sometimes in December; different times, but we have a sun calendar; and after all, God made the sun and he makes the earth go round the sun at a certain regular rate, and the year really means that.
So for us to observe the calendar date, rather than the day according to the Jewish festival is just as reasonable; I don't think it's more reasonable; I don't think it matters particularly one way or the other. It was a rather helpful thing to have the Christian churches observe the same ceremony. You know, Greece adopted the Pope's calendar—the Gregorian calendar—only as recently as 1936. And consequently when I was in Jerusalem in 1929, one morning I went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to see the Roman church celebrate Easter; and then I went to the Protestant church to see the Protestants observe Easter on the same day; and then a month later, I went to the church of the Holy Sepulchre again to see the Greek church represent Easter; and they must have had the right one, because on their day there was a flash of light that came out of the tomb of Christ; and it lit the candies, and they were carried all over Christendom; and it's most interesting to see that pitch-dark church; and then all of a sudden to see the light come out: little lights, bigger and bigger until the whole place is full of tapers all lit from the light that has miraculously come out of the tomb of Christ, as it has done for hundreds of years.
They used to—before the Bolshevik Revolution—runners used to carry that light all over the world; wherever there were Greek Orthodox churches, they carried it, to light the candles in their church. But it was a different day. Now the Greeks do it on the same day we do because in 1936 the Greeks changed their calendar to adopt the Pope's calendar, which we adopted in 1752 or something like that. We adopted it and the Roman Catholics adopted it about 1582 or something like that. But it was rather silly, in a way, to see Easter observed one day and then to see it observed a month later; and it is convenient to have the same day in churches so that they all remember on the same day; but it's not particularly important, it doesn't seem to me.
I have friends who get terribly excited about calendar. Wouldn't it be terrible if we had a scientific calendar, and the result was we never knew whether it was really Sunday or not? They think that would be awful to have a scientific calendar, and you didn't really know whether it was a Sunday or not. Now of course the idea of the scientific calendar is that every month has 28 days; and so they're even numbers of weeks; and they're the same, so you don't have to look at your calendar to find out what the day of the week a certain day of the month is going to be; you just know. And then at the end of the year we would have an extra day which we wouldn't count [as a day of the week]; and then we would start in afresh, January 1 being Sunday every year. Well, this scientific calendar has been advanced for years and years, I don't think we'll ever adopt it, I think we'll still stick to three feet to a yard and all that foolishness, and we probably will on the calendar also.
But I have friends who think it would be perfectly terrible if we lost track of what the real day of Sunday was. Maybe they're right. But personally, I don't feel that way at all. I feel that the Lord's command is a series, every 7th day we observe; but that this happened to be exactly an even number 7 since the particular day before, really what great difference does that make? And it's that way with observing Christmas, we don't know when Christmas was; we don't know when Christ was born but I think it's a very fine thing to have a day when we all remember particularly the Lord's birth; I think it's a wonderful thing. It doesn't seem to me it matters.
And
when we come to Easter, is it the right date in our calendar? Is it the right
date in the moon calendar, the Jewish calendar? Well, the two calendars are
different. You can't have it right in both, because they differ. But the
important thing isn't having it right; the important thing is, every so often
having a special reminder of those glorious facts of our Savior. So this
agreement to follow the sun calendar instead of the Jewish calendar was an
action of the Council at Nicaea.
(3). Centers of
Church Leadership. And
then the third thing that we should mention is its reference to its leadership
of the church. And it is very interesting that there is absolutely no statement
at the Nicene Council of such a thing as the Roman Church being supreme. But
there is a mention of three great churches—as being great churches which have a
leadership in their area—and these are the churches of Rome and of Alexandria
and of Antioch. Those were the patriarchal seats; the bishop of those churches
was the bishop of the greatest church in that area; and they are recognized,
and there is a certain honor given to Rome because it's mentioned first; and
mentioned first, having been the oldest capital of the Roman Empire. But Rome,
Antioch and Alexandria are mentioned. Constantinople is not mentioned. That was
a tremendously important fact for the East. Why was Constantinople not
mentioned in this list of important churches? There was no Constantinople; it
was founded a few years afterward. It did not yet exist. So there are mentioned
the three great centers. Now, in future years there were four great centers.
But at this time, there were only three, and the three are mentioned. But there
is no suggestion that any one of these three has any supremacy over the others.
There is a perhaps slight gesture to Rome, the old capital of the Empire. So
much then for the other actions of the council.
3. The Arian Controversy to the Death of Constantine. Now that may strike you as a strange title. Wasn't the matter settled? Had not the council decided that the Nicene Creed was correct? Why then should there be an Arian Controversy continuing to the death of Constantine? Well, I am sure that many other people would have felt the same thing; they would have wondered. But the fact was, of course, that while the teaching of the Bible is clear on the great facts on the whole deity and the whole humanity of Christ, that there had been all sorts of theorists through the previous centuries, trying to explain this; and their explanations often were such as to really do away with one or the other of the two great aspects of Christ's person, his deity and his humanity. And we've noticed the Monarchian dispute, and these views were still present.
But more important than that, there would seem to have been a little group of people who were determined to push Arianism through; and this little group of people was now defeated; their leaders were sent into exile; they were repudiated by the Creed; the Emperor was against them; but they were a determined group; and a determined group that is anxious to work forward for some cause, especially if they're not over-scrupulous in their methods, can often accomplish a tremendous amount; and in the course of the next 13 years, the little group of Arians succeeded in changing themselves from a group which was exiled, repudiated, had no standing, to a group which was a dominant group in the Empire. But oh, it was a slow process; and at first a very, very quiet one.
Let me make you a statement which I would like you to take down. I will not give you details now, but I want you to know them later. Here is the statement: Arianism, formally, was destroyed at the Council of Nicaea; that is to say, there was an action taken declaring the end of Arianism.
Arianism, among educated people, came to an end more than 50 years later; though in part of that time it seemed to be in the majority. Arianism, as a political force, was important for at least another 300 years. One of these days I'm going to ask you to explain that statement. I'm not going to explain it to you, but in the course of our lectures, I will touch upon all the elements entering in to it. And I'd like you to be alert to watch for them, because it is very important.
Among educated people, as I say, it was a tremendous force, until more than 50 years after this time, when it ended as far as the old Roman Empire is concerned. But Arianism, as a vital political force, continued for at least three centuries. Why and how we will notice later, and I would like you to notice.
We
continue then with the Arian controversy to the death of Constantine.
a. The Work of Athanasius. Athanasius, we have already noticed, was a deacon, and private secretary at the time to Alexander, the Bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius—many would think—was the greatest man in the Christian church in its first 300 and more years of history. Certainly we have not mentioned anyone yet in our church history, aside from the Biblical characters, who could rank beside Athanasius, as a Christian leader and as a powerful force in Christian history. Tertullian was a very great writer; Cyprian was a very great administrator; Athanasius was a great writer and a great administrator.
I am stressing the greatness of Athanasius' character. There are a few people who detest Athanasius, but there aren't many. Many people—even of those who don't have so much regard for Christianity—are impressed with the intrepidness, the intellectual ability, the moral acumen, and the administrative excellence of Athanasius. He was an outstanding man in many ways. I wish we had time to go into details of his life to a great extent. We cannot. I intended to take a section on Athanasius and go straight through his life; but I don't want to do this, because you'll understand it better if we look at the history and note where he comes in at different points; because he lived many years after this, and they were years of tremendous importance; and his activity was of tremendous importance. And under this head here, I simply want to mention the fact that when, three years after the Council of Nicaea, Bishop Alexander died; the people of Alexandria overwhelmingly asked that Athanasius be made the Bishop of Alexandria in his place. In 328 there was determined opposition from the Melitians, the people of this schism I mentioned, and the Arians. But the support of Athanasius was overwhelming; and he was elected Bishop of Alexandria, a position which he held—nominally at least—until his death more than 40 years later. And Athanasius—he died in 373—so you see he had a very long period as bishop, 45 years; he was an excellent administrator; a good preacher; a very clear thinker; a man who was recognized throughout the Christian world as a man of tremendous ability and great influence.
Now
a century ago, all that we had from Athanasius was his controversial writings;
and they are very able and very numerous. But within the last century, there
was discovered in Egypt his annual letters, in which he told his people what
the date of Easter was going to be that year; they didn't all have the
astronomical means of figuring that out, so for many years he wrote these
letters to people; and in the letter he not only tells them the date of Easter
but he gives a certain amount of presentation of the Scripture and devotional
lessons for their lives; and we see him more as the active Christian worker
here than as a leader of a party. And the writings are very outstanding, in
their splendid presentation of Christian writing, Christian activity and
Christian devotion. But Athanasius, after becoming bishop here, for the next
ten years was recognized as a very great administrator and a very strong
Christian, and highly regarded by the Christians in the world in general. But
we note,
b. The Political
Maneuvers of the Arians. The Arians set to work to reestablish themselves,
and they did it very cleverly. Some of them talked to the people who liked
Eusebius' creed and didn't see any need of a new one; and they said,
"What's the point in these new innovations; these words, one from the
essence of the Father, God of God, Light of lights, and all that? We don't need
all these new words; let's hold the old creed that the martyrs stood by; so
they appealed to their conservative feelings against the creed of Nicaea in
that way. Then, they began looking at the individual leaders; and one of the
leaders who had stood shoulder to shoulder with Athanasius, they found that in
his stand against Arianism he had leaned back a little bit in his stand against
Arianism to where some of his statements had fallen over into the opposite
error, that of Sabellianism; and Sabellianism hadn't been exposed long before
this was strongly opposed in the Christian church; and they began to accuse him
of Sabellianism; and Sabellianism, as you know, is the idea that there is no
distinction of persons in the Godhead; God reveals himself as the Father, as
the Son, as the Holy Ghost; there's just one person in the Godhead, but
different manifestations. Well, they accused Marcellus of Sabellianism. And
they were able to bring sufficient evidence that a council met and deposed him
from his bishopric; and he lost his bishopric and went into exile.
c. The Exile of Athanasius. Then they succeeded against other of the Athanasius leaders, one after another. Until finally in 336 or 337, they brought charges at a council Tyre against Athanasius, and they accused him; many of the Arian leaders had gotten back, had the exile against them removed, and they had gotten some of the Athanasian leaders into exile on various excuses, and now at a council in 335, the synod of Tyre.
The accusation was made that one of the Melitian bishops named Arsenius had been murdered by Athanasius; that Athanasius was guilty of extortion and magic. Well, word had come to Athanasius about this charge that was going to be made against him. He asked, "Where is Arsenius?" He's disappeared. Arsenius had disappeared; and they said that Athanasius had murdered him; but Athanasius had loyal followers who made a diligent search, and they found Arsenius where he had been hidden; and they brought Arsenius to Athanasius. Arsenius was very sorry when he heard what had been done, and how he had been duped to let himself be used as a tool in this; so they took him in disguise up to Tyre; and there in Tyre they brought the charges against Athanasius of murder of Arsenius, and they even brought out a hand into the court. "This is his hand, here's Arcenius' hand, the proof he murdered him," And Athanasius said, "Well, you can present a hand, but let me present something." They went outside and brought in the whole man. "Here's Arsenius; I didn't murder him; you can see here he is living, ready to tell you that this is all a farce."
Well,
the Council of Tyre had been worked up to such a pitch of hatred against
Athanasius that, in spite of this, they brought other charges; they accused him
of massacre, extortion, and other things. Athanasius saw there was no
possibility of getting justice there; so he left and hurried to Constantinople;
and there he presented himself before the Emperor to demand a fair trial.
Constantine summoned the accusers; and when the accusers got to Constantinople,
they had already been working on Constantine for a long time, with criticisms
of Athanasius and little slanders of him, little slams and so on; and they had
managed to arouse suspicion in his mind; now they came in, they never mentioned
Arsenius; they had a brand new charge; they said that Athanasius had used his
influence to hold back the grain ships from leaving Alexandria to carry grain
to Constantinople; and Constantinople had been having difficulty getting
sufficient provisions, Constantine was under severe criticism from his people
because of the shortness of food; Egypt was the great granary of the world; the
ships weren't coming as they should; they said it was Athanasius who was
responsible for it; and Constantine, whom they had already worked on to the
point where he was ready to believe what they said, ordered Athanasius into
exile; he was sent off to France into exile.
d. The Return and Death of Arius. So they sent word to Arius, they said, "Arius can't you come back? Arius was still in exile; he wrote Constantine a confession of his mistake; which skipped the points at issue, but was very cleverly worded; and Constantine read it; he said, "This sounds thoroughly Christian to me; bring him back here, and we will receive him back into the church at Constantinople; he will be reestablished in the church; so they brought Arius back—to Constantinople—they gave him a big dinner and honored him at this dinner; next day he was received into the church. But before the time when he was to come into the church, he was suddenly stricken with severe illness and died. So he was not received back but they were all ready to receive him back; and the triumph of the Arians seems to be complete.
Well,
Athanasius was in exile; it was a couple of years after that when Constantine
was baptized; and he got the Bishop of Nicomedia to baptize him; he was a man
who had been very friendly with the Arians; some people even said the emperor
is baptized into Arianism. Actually I don't think that was the case; the man
was the nearest bishop; and he was a leader, and he wasn't one who had publicly
declared himself for the Arians, though he had worked for them, there's no
question of that. But Constantine, on his deathbed, gave orders that Athanasius
be recalled from exile. So Athanasius came back after a couple of years in
exile, and was reestablished in his bishopric.
D. The Reign of
Constantius.
Under that
1. The Sons of Constantine. You remember how Diocletian worked up a clever scheme to maintain stability in the Empire, but the scheme didn't work out. Constantine by his own power, force of character, military ability, had established a unified control which lasted until his death in 337. He was not very much aware of the problems at his death that Diocletian had faced. But the Empire had a stability to it, with the long reign of Diocletian and the long reign of Constantine, which it had not had in the previous century. But when Constantine died, he left numerous relatives; and he divided up the control of the Empire among all of these relatives. With his three sons having control of the three main parts of the Empire, the Middle, the East, and the West; and the others having considerable influence here and there; the soldiers said this is much too confusing. We'll have all kinds of chaos and confusion here. They said let's not do anything to Constantine's sons; we'll let each of them rule a third of the Empire; but let's get rid of the rest, or we'll have lots of wars and upheavals. So they killed all his relatives. So after Contantine's death, there was a massacre of all of his relatives except his three sons.
Included in this massacre was a brother of Constantine; this brother had two little boys, and these little boys we will hear of later. They were so small they didn't bother to kill them. And they grew up—one of them—to be one of the greatest menaces Christianity had in the whole century; but I won't bother you with their names right now; merely to state that, except for these two nephews, all of Constantine's main relatives were killed, except the three sons. The three sons held the three main portions of the Empire. However, before long, there was war between two of the sons, as might well be expected. And one of them defeated the other, who was killed. And this left two sons. And then a few years later, an usurper attacked one of these sons, and destroyed him; and he established himself in his place; and then the other son of Constantine fought with him, and eventually, after two or three years the usurper was defeated; and that left one son in control of the whole empire. So he is of great importance in history, this one. His name was Constantius.
Well, Constantius was a man who exerted a great influence in the progress of Christianity, and we will look at him at our next meeting, the Reign of Constantius.
Arius took as high and exalted view of Christ as you can possibly get, without making him absolutely God as he is in Scripture. Arius was taking the wrong, standing by it, and yet going just as near to the right as you can possibly can, while still clinging to the wrong.
And that's what made Arianism so dangerous, and it was so hard to recognize. But it did have that wrong which was sufficient to blast the very foundation of Christianity, if it had been permitted. So Arius said Jesus is very God of very God, Jesus created the world. That's a tremendous thing to say, you couldn't say it about any ordinary person. And Arius stressed that Jesus created the world, but he was himself created; he was created before the world; but he was created, he was not God from all eternity.
Christ being appointed in point of time: that is what distinguished Arianism from the orthodox view; but there are many other unorthodox views which would not say he created the world; there are views which would hold that Jesus Christ came into existence at his birth, or at his conception. In fact, the Arian view of Christ, that he was so great that he himself created the world, is a hundred times stronger than the view of the average modernist today about Christ. And at least 50 times higher than the view of the neo-orthodox or Barthian about Christ today.
It was a view which was much closer to true Christianity than any of the modernist views today. And that's one thing which made it so subtle and so difficult to see the harm of. But when its protagonist was pushing—now a person may have confused ideas on these things, and still be a very earnest and effective Christian—but when a man takes the error and pushed it as Arius and his associates did, they are pushing something which will mean utter destruction of Christianity, if they succeed.
We should all have as clear ideas as we can; but if a person's emphasis is on the great things of the Gospel, the fact that his mind is somewhat muddled does not make him a great menace; it's when he takes the muddled elements in his mind and proceeds to make them the thing he's fighting on and pushing; and of course that's one danger of teaching by one whose mind is muddled; he himself may put his stress on the vital things that are important; but if he teaches certain error along with it, someone else who learns from him may put their great stress on the error.
Arius said Jesus was of a different nature; he was a different essence from God. But many who supported him said, "No, he is a similar nature but not the same. These we call semi-Arians. Arius himself actually never went that far from the truth, but a group that was really pushing his side later on did that very strongly.
Now, you remember, yesterday, we started B, The Reign of Constantius; and as you all are aware, this Constantius is a different man from his grandfather, who was Constantius Chlorus. Under that, 1 was the Sons of Constantine; and we noticed that at the death of Constantine certain charges were brought against his relatives; and though investigation was made of the relatives, the soldiers simply killed them all—that is, practically all. They killed his brother; they killed his nephews and his nieces; they killed particularly the males, but they slaughtered quite a large number of relatives of Constantine; and there were left three sons, Constantius and his two brothers. And for a time the empire was divided between the three of them, with each of them ruling a section, East, West, and Middle. Then the two over the Western two-thirds fought, and one of them named Constans defeated Constantine's second son, and he died, and Constans had two-thirds of the Empire. He continued for quite a while and then a usurper raised himself up against him, killed him, established himself in control of that part of the Empire, and after 3 or 4 years was himself destroyed by Constantius, who was now in charge of the whole empire, and continued to be until his death in 361.
Now that is a very brief summary of the political forces from the period from 337 to 361, a period of 24 years; its main features are rather important to the understanding of the religious history of the period. Because Constantius, who reigned in the Eastern third, and during the last third of it reigned over the whole empire—Constantius was different from his two brothers, in that they supported the Athanasian or Nicene view, while he supported his friends who nominally took the Arian view or different views which were similar to the Arian view, and so Constantius is a very important person for us in our understanding of church history.
If
he had been over the whole empire the whole 24 years, it is hard to say what
might have happened to the orthodox faith. Christianity might have been pushed
back for 200 years at this time. As it was, he seemed to put it back a hundred
years; but actually the way events turned out, in the end no harm was done. In
fact, someone has said it was much better for the church that during this time
there should be a man as emperor one who opposed Christianity, and would make
it do what he thought was right, and persecute those who differed with his
views of theology; it was better for the church that he be persecuting the
orthodox people than that he be persecuting the Arians. It developed a
nobleness of character in the orthodox, and made them struggle with spiritual
weapons for the faith, and did the church good in the end. Though for the time
being, it did a lot of harm; and many failed to have a chance to hear the true
gospel, because of the activities of Constantius. So much then for the Sons of
Constantine.
2. The Progress of Arianism. And we could very easily take a period of three weeks, going into the various councils which were called by Constantius or by some of the bishops who were in close league with him. And the councils which were called by bishops who were against him, and the efforts which they made to get rid of the Nicene Creed, and to introduce another creed which would not shock people like an out-and-out Arian creed would, but yet would lead them pretty far in that direction. And the efforts which were made to enforce a more Arian view as the religion of the forces of the Empire which Constantius controlled, which eventually became the whole Empire.
We have a very different situation now than we had in the 2nd century. In the 2nd century, Christianity was a little group of people scattered through the Empire, with very little means; and they had no possibility of making expensive copies of their writings, or of hiring people to spend great amounts of time and literary work; they were a small and poor people, little known; and what we know of Christianity in the 2nd century is comparatively little. We're interested in every scrap of information we can get about it.
But in this 4th century it is a religion—though it's still a religion of maybe only a fourth of the people of the Empire at the beginning of the century—it is a religion which is favored by the Emperor; and it has strong leaders in every portion of the Empire; it has very large material resources at its disposal; and the writings we have from this period are extremely extensive. All we can do is to pick the high spots, to try to give an idea of the main things. And I think that, rather than take the time to go into all these councils and various attempts that were made, it will be most helpful to give you a general idea of the course of the situation, to tell something about Athanasius, and what he went through during this time.
Now you remember that Athanasius had been exiled by Constantine. Not because he was against Arianism as far as Constantine was concerned; but with no question that it was the people who were sympathetic with Arianism who brought the charges against Athanasius, and who proceeded to condemn him at the Council of Tyre, on these charges—not of false doctrine at all—but of having opposed the Melitians in wicked ways, and having actually killed one of their bishops. And you remember that this bishop that they accused him of killing, Athanasius found and made friends with to such an extent that he was glad to go with him secretly to the council of Tyre and there to show himself as proof that Athanasius had not murdered him as was claimed.
But when Athanasius saw they were going to condemn him anyway—they brought all kinds of other charges against him—they were going to condemn him, he rushed to Constantinople and there Constantine had demanded that they be brought before him; and he looked into it personally, and would have doubtless let him go, except that they said that he had held back the grain ships from Egypt; and he, as an important figure, head of the church in Egypt, could have exerted certain influences in that direction if he chose; and they succeeded in persuading Constantine and he banished him, so that Athanasius had a couple of years in banishment at this time, in another part of the Empire, out of touch with these men.
And then, when Constantine died, there was a political amnesty given at his death, and Athanasius was allowed to return. So he returned to Alexandria where he was received with great joy. He had been for ten years a bishop, and everyone honored him for his great stand for the faith and for his powerful presentation of the truth regarding the person of Christ. But even many who had not thought highly of that phase of his activities, had been won to him during this ten years by his fine gospel preaching; his valuable expositions of the Word of God; and his very excellent administration of the church, so as to handle the defects that came up; the wrong person in a certain position or difficulties that arose; and he was very skilful, and capable in handling these. He was always on the go, visiting people and investigating situations, trying to improve the effectiveness of the church throughout the Empire, as an instrument of making Christ known throughout the land.
And even the pagans highly honored and respected him—this great Christian Bishop—whose efficiency they admired; whose fine Christian character they thought very highly of. There was very little opposition to him in Egypt any more. But in the other lands there was very strong opposition among the Arian leaders; so when he came back, he was welcomed by the people of Egypt; and he was there for two or three years now; but the Arian leaders elsewhere were not content to see him in Egypt in this position of great importance; and they brought influence to bear on Constantius. This was in the part of the Empire controlled by Constantius; and Constantius was anxious to advance the Arian view; and so when the bishop there said that the Synod of Tyre had condemned Athanasius; the condemnation had never been revoked; therefore he had no right to be the Bishop of Alexandria. Constantius said, that is correct, and Athanasius should not be there; he should be banished for having taken it over when he had no right to do it. So the Imperial Prefects came and gave him the order; he must leave Egypt within 24 hours.
He picked up a few belongings and set sail for Rome. He came to Rome and to the Bishop of Rome, whose name was Julius. He told Julius what had happened, and said "This is not right." He said, "You are the head of one of the most important churches, one that is in many ways equally important with that of Alexandria." And he said, "A word from you on this matter would be of some help. Won't you express yourself as against what has been done to me here by these people who are opposing me, not for anything they've proved against me, but because of my loyalty to the Scriptural teaching about Christ?" And Bishop Julius—one book I read said that Julius showed a very fine judicial attitude at this time—Julius said, "Well, now, Athanasius, we want to do what is right and stand by what is correct; but we must go slow and investigate. I will say not a word for you or against you, until the matter has been investigated by competent people." So he called a council of 50 bishops from Italy and the region north of Italy. And before these bishops, they had Athanasius present the matter; and they had someone invited—brought from the East—to present the charges against Athanasius. The 50 bishops went into it thoroughly, and they voted unanimously that Athanasius was innocent of any charges; that the opposition to him was based solely on opposition to the truth as he was presenting it; and that Athanasius should be restored to his bishopric in Alexandria. But this action of the bishops in Rome did not affect the bishops in Alexandria, as Constantius was in control there, and Constantius did not want him back there.
So for a number of years Athanasius remained in Rome. Now in McSorley's history here, he has very little said about Pope Saint Julius I. All he says about him is "St. Julius I, 337-353, in a Synod held in Rome in 340, defended St. Athanasius against the attacks of Arians, and (at the request of the Egyptian bishops) restored him to the See of Alexandria." As you read that, it sounds as if Pope Julius was the great authority, and what he said was right; he said Athanasius was right, restore him to his See.
Now that is quite a misrepresentation, because, you notice, he doesn't say St. Julius did this; he said St. Julius, in a synod held in Rome. And that of course points to the true fact: what Julius did was simply to gather 50 bishops together to investigate the matter; and he refused himself to take a stand on it; he simply said, "Let the bishops examine it, and what they decide is the truth; we will stand upon it." Very, very far from the present-day claims of the Bishop of Rome. Then it says here; he restored him to his See of Alexandria. Now that sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But there's a parenthesis before it, "at the request of the bishops of Egypt."
And the fact of the matter is, that Julius passed on the decision of the 50 bishops there, regarding the charges against Athanasius, that he should be restored to his position in Alexandria; they stated that, but it could not be done until Constantius would agree. However, after a few years, Constans—who was now ruler of two-thirds of the Empire—wrote to Constantius and said to him that he would like to see Athanasius restored to his position in Egypt. And Constantius was anxious to be on good terms with Constans, who held the larger part of the Empire; and he decided that no great harm would come from having Athanasius back; and if it would win him better friendship with Constans it was worthwhile.
So after considerable maneuvering between the two emperors, the promise was given that he will be restored; and Constantius went the whole way when he did it. He wrote several letters to Athanasius in which he said, "Athanasius, I am glad to hear that after careful investigation, 50 bishops have decided there is nothing to be charged against you. The people of Egypt would like to have you back, and it would rejoice my heart to see the Egyptian church under good solid leadership, and well administered." So he said, "I wish you would come back, and I will give you imperial help in getting there; and I want to assure you of my interest and my constant protection that I will give you in the future if you come back to the church in Egypt."
He wrote him very, very fine letters. Athanasius had several times visited the emperor Constans; he was now sent on to the East; Constantius received him in most friendly fashion, sent him down to Egypt. He was reestablished. And when he came, they say that for miles out of the city there was a great gathering of people; most of the Christians and many of the pagans were gathered there to welcome him back to Alexandria. It was a great triumphant procession, the return of Athanasius to Alexandria.
But he wasn't there very long before Constantius began to regret what he had done for political reasons. Because very soon, the people there were so solidly behind Athanasius, and Athanasius was so clear in his defense of the Nicene creed, that the Arian bishops in the rest of the Eastern Empire—whom Constantius was favoring, and putting into positions and driving out the bishops who held the Nicene creed—that they were constantly coming to him with statements about how Athanasius' letters and articles were hurting them, with their attempt to gain control and everything; and Constantius reached the point of saying, "We've got to get rid of Athanasius."
Now, however, he didn't want to do anything that would displease Constans; but then Maxentius, the usurper, killed Constans, the ruler of the Western Empire, and for three or four years he held the area as emperor; but it would inevitably come to war between his forces and those of Constantius; they fought, there was a great battle, and Maxentius was defeated and killed, and Constantius was now ruler of the whole Empire. This put him in an entirely different situation. He got rid of some of the people who favored Athanasius in other places; and then the word was sent to Alexandria: Athanasius must leave; he is not to be bishop any longer. Athanasius said, "I have these letters from Constantius; he says he will stand by me; he spoke in most friendly fashion; this is all a plot of the enemy to the truth; I do not believe that Constantius has anything to do with it," and he held to that view for a time. But the evidence came to be too strong that Constantius was back of it. Athanasius and his leaders said, "We will not have Athanasius, who has truly been chosen and elected by the people of Egypt to be head of the church of Alexandria, we will not have him taken away from us; he is our proper bishop; we want to have him here."
But Constantius sent a force of troops; the troops came into Alexandria quietly. And one evening, they were having a big ceremony in the main church; the church was full of people, and Athanasius was in front presiding at the ceremony, when suddenly the doors flew open; 5000 troops had been stationed all around the church; they broke in through the door; they shot arrows into the church; they rushed in, and began attacking, destroying people, and disrupting the whole thing. There were a lot of people killed; there was an awful lot of damage done to the church; and when the thing was all over, they looked around for Athanasius, but they couldn't find him. There were bodies of people killed and maimed, but no Athanasius. They found out later that Athanasius had continued conducting the service as long as he possibly could—with all this rushing around—the lights went out, and he started to go out; somebody ran into and hit against him, knocked him to the floor; he lay there senseless for a time; the crowd was rushing here and there; he got up, made his way on out; some friends of his saw him and took hold of him, and led him out of the city, out into the desert; and he disappeared.
So Athanasius escaped with his life; but a man who had been a court merchant was put in by the emperor as bishop, as head of the church of Alexandria; his name was George; he became the bishop; the people hadn't elected him; they didn't want him, but he was the bishop, Bishop George in Alexandria, head of the Church of Egypt. And in 90 other cities, the bishops were all put out; and men were put in who were favored by Constantius—men who would support the Arian view—but Athanasius had been taken out into the desert. And out in the desert, outside of Egypt, there were many men who were disgusted at the worldliness of the Imperial court, and with much of the worldliness that was coming into the church; they had desired to get away from all of that, and to spend their lives in contemplation and prayer; and they were living in caves in the desert.
Some of these had been organized into communities; there was no monasticism as we know it today, but it was just barely beginning. Many of these people were organized into communities; all of them were supporters of the orthodox faith; and for a period of several years, Athanasius was hidden there in the desert; he lived with them on their simple fare—he who was head of one of the largest churches in the world, who had all of the advantages that money could give in that day for efficient carrying on of his work, and for living in a way to have the greatest efficiency—he now lived on a few crusts of bread; drew his own water; and lived the way that they did; but they were ready to do services for him; to act as secretaries for him; to do whatever they could. And in the desert there, he wrote letters and wrote articles which were distributed throughout Egypt; he carried on an important influence, but he was out there hidden in the wilderness, with the Empire entirely against his views. In the Western Church—which under Constans had been protected—Constantius now was ordering the bishops to come together and pass Arius' Creed, and do away with the bishops who were standing strongly by the Nicene Creed.
So people began to say, "It is Athanasius against the world. The world is against Athanasius; all the bishops are capitulating everywhere; they are accepting the Arian view; the people who hold the Arian view are getting control everywhere; there is only Athanasius standing for the Nicene Creed. Athanasius against the world. The world against Athanasius."
But Athanasius, though he might be standing against the world, he was writing his articles and his letters which were secretly disseminated and spread; and he had thousands of these hermits who were hiding him and protecting him from any force of soldiers that would come to get him; and every now and then, they say, he would go in disguise into Alexandria, and talk with people; and he even secretly observed some of the councils that were held in order to make changes in the church during this time.
So this reign of Constantius is a time of great progress of Arianism. The way he treated Athanasius is a good illustration of it, but we should mention how he treated the Bishop of Rome. Arianism was largely a matter of the Eastern Church; the Eastern Church was more speculative; they were arguing about different details on the matter of the understanding of the doctrines. The Western Church, as a whole, seems to have been more interested in the practical progress of the Gospel; the administration of the Church; in improving sanctification, and the development of the people. And in the Western Church as a whole, they said, "This is what the Council of Nicaea agreed upon; this is the truth we're standing on." There wasn't much Arianism in the Western Church, though there was some.
But Constantius now brought it into the Western area, which he now controlled; and he seized Hosius, the Bishop of Cordova, who was now an old man. He had suffered tortures under Diocletian in the persecution 50 years before. He had been Constantine's right-hand man; presided at the Council of Nicaea; the Counselor of the Old Emperor. Now he was an old man; he refused to pay any attention to the order to introduce Arian teaching into Spain; he kept to the Nicene Creed. Constantius' soldiers came and seized him; they took him far away from Spain, ordered him to sign an Arian Creed. When he would not do it, they put him to torture; and the Old Man in the torture found himself unable to stand against it; and he stopped the torture by agreeing to sign the Arian Creed.
[student] Hosius of Cordova. He is not one of the great fires of ancient church history, but a very good man; a man who had some prominence, as we mentioned at various times. He presided at the Council of Nicaea. Sometimes the Roman Catholics say he presided as representative of the Pope, but there's absolutely no evidence that he did.
But here it is sad to say, in his old age he was forced with torture to sign an Arian Creed, but strongly resisting it to the end. Then there was Liberius, who was the Bishop of Rome, succeeding Julius. Julius, you remember, was the one who held the Synod to declare Athanasius innocent. Liberius was now his successor; he was, according to McSorley, Bishop of Rome for 14 years. But McSorley says "of Liberius we know little more than the true fact that he was exiled by the Emperor Constantius for his refusal to condemn St. Athanasius. And that after his death, his orthodoxy was the subject of long and fiery dispute." Then he goes on to a few lesser matters, but McSorley puts in there, "the controversy was occasioned by the statements of certain writers, including St. Jerome," and there's no ancient writer more highly esteemed in the Roman Catholic Church than St. Jerome. He says, "by the statement of certain writers including St. Jerome, who affirmed that the Pope was allowed to return from exile only after he had signed an Arian formula." Now we see how McSorley explains it: "such an act, under compulsion, does not of course involve papal infallibility, a circumstance overlooked by many who attach undue importance to the confluence."
In 1870 when the attempt was being made to get the Roman Catholic Church to accept the idea of papal infallibility, some of the leading Roman Catholic scholars at the meeting—at the Vatican Council—brought forward such matters as this. They said, "What about Liberius? Liberius signed an Arian Creed." But they said, "It was done under compulsion; it has nothing to do with papal infallibility." Well, I don't personally think we should hold it against the church of Rome—as a separate church—if occasionally it had a leader who was unworthy. And I'm not even sure you can prove that Liberius was unworthy, because Liberius seems to have supported the Nicene view; supported Athanasius; and resisted the efforts of Constantius. But, if Liberius gave way to the fear of torture, and in order to get back to Rome and to get restored to his potion, to the point where he signed that Arian Creed—even if later he repudiated it—he therein showed a weakness which would hardly be fitting in a man who should be the leader of Christ's people on earth.
We find such people in many places; but it is certainly not consonant with the claims of the Roman Catholic Church that he is the divinely established leader of the people of God on earth. In those days nobody thought he was, so people simply said, "That's too bad about Liberius; a good well-meaning man, but just not the man for bishop." That's what they said then. But when you talk about papal infallibility, it just doesn't fit with it. Well, Liberius was in exile for years, while Constantius was trying to force him to sign the Arian Creed; and doubtless he did sign it the end, but he repudiated it when he came back to Rome.
But
in the history of the Christian Church there never was a ruler whose reign was
of more importance to the Christian Church than was the next reign, the reign
of Julian. And for the Arian Controversy it was an interlude. This is the
century of the Arian controversy that we are looking at. And that is the vital
overshadowing thing through the whole of the 4th century—that is, except for
the very beginning and the very end. But the reign of Julian is an interlude
which had tremendous effects upon the Arian controversy, but which had other
effects which were even more important.
E. The Reign of
Julian (361-363).
The reign of Julian was only two years long. But in the history of the Christian
Church there never was a ruler whose reign was of more importance to the
Christian church than was the reign of Julian. And for the Arian Controversy it
was an interlude. This is the century of the Arian controversy, that we are
looking at. And that is the vital overshadowing thing through the whole of the
4th century, that is, except for the very beginning and the very end. But the
reign of Julian is an interlude which had tremendous effects upon the Arian
controversy but which had other effects which were even more important.
1. Julian's Background. Julian is usually called Julian the Apostate. He is the only emperor, I believe, since Constantine, who did not call himself a Christian. He gloried in calling himself a pagan. When the soldiers, at the accession of Constantius in 337, killed Constantine's brothers and nephews and nieces, there were two little boys whom they did not slaughter. Maybe they took pity on the innocence of these two little fellows. One of them was 12 years old and one was six. The one 12 years old, who does not concern us greatly was called Gallas; the one 6 years old, who concerns us tremendously, is called Julian. These two boys were not killed. They were cousins of Constantius, but much younger. Their lives were spared, but they were kept practically as prisoners; they were trained, they were given education; Julian was trained to be a reader in the church, and he had to read the lesson in the church at various times. But the way they were treated by their cousin Constantius didn't make them like him particularly; and what they saw of the Arian methods didn't make them think particularly well of Christianity.
Gallus grew up to be a man who—historians didn't think very much of his character—but Constantius put him in charge of a section; and there he seems to have been very brutal and cruel in dealing with people; and Constantius sent word to him to come and give a report of his conduct in that section of the Empire. He came, and when he was a few miles away, Constantius said, "Now, Gallus, I wish you would leave your forces there and just come with ten men with you, the remaining miles." So he came; and then when he got there, Constantius immediately said, "Now he's to be investigated for his deeds in that part of the Empire; take him and put him in confinement; so they put him in confinement; and then the order was given, "Take him out and kill him." Gallus was killed; and this left only Julian as a relative of Constantine. And some said Julian should be killed too, but Constantius' wife pled with him to spare the young fellow, which she liked and he agreed to do it. So Julian was spared.
But Julian—before this time—had already come in contact with pagan teachers, and especially with neo-Platonist philosophy; and Julian had decided that against the worldliness of the court, and all this egotism, and all this brutality which was in the court there, that the beautiful teachings of Plotinus and of the Neo-Platonists were much more lofty and much finer; it was a better viewpoint of life, and he secretly had himself initiated into the worship of the pagan gods; but for ten years, he never let on, and pretended to be a Christian.
And about 357 or 358, Constantius sent him to France and put him in charge of the army; and they said, "This young fellow, who studied philosophy in Athens, who has been around here in the court, and that sort of thing all his life, he doesn't know anything about military things. There is a great need there of defending the borders; and we'll send him and he'll probably get killed; or he'll make a failure of it." So they sent him; but Julian proved to have unusual ability. He led the troops in a remarkable way. He won victories; he established protection of the border; he established the administration of France in an excellent way. The soldiers became devoted to him. Constantius began to fear him, so Constantius sent word to him, "Please come back to the east and see me; I would like to discuss with you certain matters of the administration." And everybody knew what happened to Gallus when he was called to the court; so when Julian told his troops, "He said I must leave; Constantius wants me to come back and report to him on things here."
The troops said, "He's going to kill you, the way he did Gallus. You should be emperor instead of him." And they called out, "Julian should be the Augustus! Julian to be the Augustus!" And once this was done, Constantius would certainly kill him if he could get his hands on him. So the result was—the only thing that anybody could do under the circumstance—was to try to be the Emperor; and Julian did; he started with an army from France; and Constantius summoned an army and started to meet him, but before they got more than halfway, Constantius was smitten with fever and died.
There is a story about his death; that he said, "Julian should be Caesar," but we don't know whether that is true or not. But in any event there was nobody to dispute with Julian the leadership of the Empire. And Julian was secretly a pagan; secretly a hater of Christianity; and Julian was determined that Christianity should be destroyed, He said, "I do not want to persecute; the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church; I want to make it ridiculous; I want to cut down their opportunities; I want to make it difficult for them; I want to promote the pagans; I want to make it such that Christianity will die out in the Empire."
So we have the two-year reign of Julian the Apostate. And the first thing Julian did was to note that the Christians were fighting among themselves. He said, "All these bishops have been exiled; now if I bring them back, they'll start fighting again; and that will hurt Christianity." So he said, "Let all the exiled bishops return." And that included Athanasius; so Athanasius came back again and was welcomed to Alexandria as bishop again. So Julian helped the orthodox party at the beginning, but not for long. Pretty soon he decided he had to get rid of Athanasius again. He was doing too much for Christianity. We'll look at that tomorrow.
[Submitted Questions] Here's an interesting question, "Was Athanasius guilty of any definite departure from the true teachings of Scripture, or were all his views reliable?" Well, I would say there's no man ever lived of whom I would be ready to say that all of his views are reliable—including myself. We are all fallible human beings, and we all make errors; and we understand the Scriptures to some extent; and therefore the only thing that can properly be taught is the Bible and what it teaches, and not what any man teaches. Study what every man teaches and study it in the light of the Scripture; and see how much of it is right, and do not accept everything that any man says. Personally, I am not much interested in what any man says; but I'm tremendously interested in the reasons that any man gives for what he says; and the reason that really matters is that it is the teaching of Scripture.
But my personal opinion would be that probably out of all Christians who have ever lived, there was none who was closer to the true teachings of Scripture than Athanasius. Now you may find—if you study all his works—you may find some point that wasn't much in discussion then, which may be in great discussion at some later time, that once he gave an erroneous statement; but as far as I know, everything that he really worked at—everything of importance, everything that to him seemed to be vital—was very definitely right and Scriptural teaching. He certainly was one of the truest Christian leaders who ever lived.
And here is another question: "In a recent article in The University of Chicago Quarterly on New Testament there was a discussion which concerned the study of Gnosticism. The author brought out that recent evidences point to a pre-Christian Gnosticism, from which Christianity derived many of its ideas. The article also mentioned Valentine as one of the chief proponents of Gnosticism in early church history. Would you comment on these two facts? 1, pre-Christian Gnosticism; 2, Valentine." Well, to comment on them fully would take us an hour or two; and the course has only got two years to cover the whole of church history. So all we can do is to touch upon them—the vital things—and point your attention to where you can get further information on the particular ones you want to look into first.
But just briefly to comment, I would say that as far as pre-Christian Gnosticism is concerned, Gnosticism was not simply something that developed in Christianity. It was an attitude which came from outside; so this attitude may have been present a century or two before the time of Christ; or it may have started within a few years even before; but certainly there were tendencies in this direction outside. It came in from outside; it did not come up within the Christian church. But this which came in from outside—which even the apostle Paul saw coming—and criticized in the book of Colossians particularly; this thing was taken over particularly by some Christians; and they thought they had the real explanation of Christianity, and while it may have been quite an unimportant movement among the pagans—among hundreds of other people—in Christianity it became one of the great Christian heresies which threatened to completely destroy Christianity in the 2nd century.
So it would be a very interesting study to study the details of pre-Christian Gnosticism; but one from which it would be very difficult to get really basic conclusions; for the reason that very little of the material would have been preserved. Just the little we happen to have would be—I'm quite certain if we had more it might point to very different conclusions—that would be the difficulty in studying that; we don't have much material from that time because the writing material went to pieces mostly; what we have is nearly all material that was copied centuries later; and of course the Christians didn't bother to copy a lot of purely pagan material, but they copied material throwing light on early Christian history.
Then, as far as Valentine is concerned, Valentine was one of the four or five main leaders in the early gnostic groups. And if you'd like more detail on his particular portion—he certainly is not the most important—though any particular writer of articles may think he was; but he certainly was one of the four or five most important. And if you want further detail on his views, you could read in Irenaeus—perhaps 30 or 40 pages—on Valentine's views. And you could find other early Christian writers that go further into it; but when it comes to knowing fully about it, we have nothing by Valentine himself. So that actually we're pretty much in the dark to conclude a discussion on a matter like that.
Now here's a question: "Had Constantine not re-established the capital of the Roman Empire, would it seem ambiguous to say that the Roman Catholic system would never have developed into what it is today?" Well, I would say that the Roman Catholic system—as it is—developed from many different sources. And if any one of these had been different, the system would probably be different. And one thing that helped increase the importance of the Bishop of Rome was the fact that Constantine moved away. The Bishop of Constantinople was right under the shadow of the Emperor all through the next thousand years, and the Emperor often interfered; while the Bishop of Rome was far away. So that's one factor. But it is not impossible—if that factor hadn't been—that some other factor would have taken its place; we just can't tell. We would not have the church as it is today, if Constantine hadn't moved, but it might be very similar because there might be some other factor come in.
And as a matter of fact, the Roman Catholic Church—in my opinion—would not be the least bit like it is today if it were not for two factors that we haven't even looked at. One of these was the action of the German Emperor, six centuries later, without which I don't think there would be any Roman Catholic Church today. And second was the establishment of the Jesuit Order, without which I believe the Roman Catholics would have disappeared a good many years ago. You see, these enter in also. In all these things, there are many factors that enter; and this was an interesting factor in what happened; but as to what might have happened, it is actually hard to say.
[student: Would Protestantism have existed without Luther?] Well, I wouldn't say that Protestantism as it is today would certainly not have existed without Luther. Luther was the greatest single influence in the development of Protestantism; but Protestantism is mainly a matter of turning back to the Bible, and that's the main thing Luther did—was to call attention back to the Bible, take its teachings, and present them clearly; that being the case, then God has said his Word will not return to Him void.
My guess though would be that we certainly wouldn't have the sectarian differences we have if it wasn't for Luther's attitude. Yet I would say this, that if Luther had not existed, God would have raised someone else. Because he said his Word would not return to Him void. So God would have sent someone else, and we would have something similar to Protestantism today; but it might differ in many ways from what we have, if it wasn't for Luther.
Luther is one of the three or four men in history who influenced world history most, there's no question of that. I spend more time on Luther in the two years of Church History than on any other individual, because he's so tremendously important.
Then the question, "Did Constantine believe in Jesus Christ as Savior of all sinners?" I don't think there's any question but that Constantine believed the only method of salvation from sin was through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't think there's any question about that. But I don't think Constantine had as clear an understanding as we wish he might; but I think he had the basic points undoubtedly.
Here's an interesting question: "Could the Christians look to Athanasius for reform as believers looked to John Knox?" There's a great similarity between John Knox, 1200 years later, and Athanasius, tremendous similarity. They both were men who stood foursquare for the truth of God; they were men who were greatly used of God. There are great differences between the two. Athanasius was a man with much—in some ways, much more—level-headedness than John Knox. John Knox did a tremendous lot of wonderful things, but he made a few very glaring errors which almost wrecked his work. Athanasius was a great leader—stood as a bulwark—and others leaned upon him. John Knox leaned very heavily on John Calvin. It's hard to say what Knox would have been without Calvin; Knox was a tremendous leader, but Calvin was the man whose influence was shown through Knox and made effective through Knox.
Then, "Was it Julian the Apostate who was quoted 'The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church'?" I made a statement yesterday that Julian said that he did not want to persecute Christians; he knew that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church." He wanted to use other methods of destroying Christianity. Well now, I didn't mean to say that Julian originated that statement, or even necessarily used it. I don't know whether he did or not. He may; but he was certainly aware of the fact that the statement represented. The statement itself was originated by Tertullian. Tertullian originated more statements like that than any man of ancient times. He had a clever gift of making phrases; and there are perhaps twenty phrases that Tertullian originated that you hear perhaps every year, without realizing that they came from Tertullian. Tertullian also originated most of our theological vocabulary. He made the Latin words to express scriptural ideas; that is, he picked the words, and they've been used ever since. That is a place where Tertullian's influence is extremely great.
Now, number E, the reign of Julian, we were speaking of; and under that, 1, Julian's background; and we noticed his ancestry; we noticed his birth; we noticed how his life was spared when practically all his relatives were killed; we noticed how he became very bitter against Christianity; how secretly he became a pagan; how he did not let on he was, but he was privately in close touch with the pagan leaders, and particularly with the Neo-Platonist leaders. And then we noticed how his uncle gave him this very difficult post, as head of the government in France; where the barbarians were threatening the frontiers; and there were difficult problems of administration; and this young man surprised everybody by taking ahold of it and doing an excellent job. He proved to be a man of remarkable ability.
Well, he was descended from Constantius Chlorus, Constantine's father; he came of a very able family, and he showed ability which nobody had suspected. And he showed himself to be a very remarkable military leader too. He drove back the enemy; he established things in good condition there; and then he was ordered to come and report alone to Constantius; and Constantius had killed his brother a few years before; the brother had committed many wrongs; he should at least have been punished, though not perhaps killed.
But that having happened to Julian's brother, the troops feared that's going to happen to Julian; and they had become devoted to him, and someone cried out, "Make Julian the Emperor!" And it went all through the army; and they said, "Don't you go and see Constantius alone; we'll go with you; we'll make you the Emperor." And Julian now, whether he had planned this; whether he wanted it at all; the fact is it had occurred; and having occurred—after this—if he got into his cousin's Constantius power, he would certainly be killed after that threat to Constantius' power.
So he went with the army; Constantius came to meet him; and while the two were coming together, Constantius took sick and died suddenly; and the result was that now nobody hesitated, Julian was the Emperor. Whether Constantius on his deathbed said Julian should succeed him or not, we cannot prove. But there was nobody who had any proper claim to dispute it. He was the only man left of Constantine's family; all the rest had been killed. No one else had any claim by birth to the position; and Julian had established himself as an able ruler, a good administrator, and an able general. So there was just no voice of any prominence raised against Julian's being Emperor. So he became Emperor in a situation as excellent as any man could ask to have. He faced hardly any opposition; he had a good record which people looked to with pride; and everybody favored him as Emperor. But now, they find out he is a pagan who wishes to destroy Christianity.
You
see, there had been—so far as I know—no Emperor since Constantine who had not
called himself a Christian. Constantine was the first Emperor to call himself a
Christian. And since Constantine there has been only one Emperor who didn't,
and that was Julian. Julian had been brought up as a Christian; he had acted as
a reader in the church—reading the Bible in the Church as a young man; and
therefore, there was every reason that he claim to be a Christian, And he
pretended to be a Christian till he became Emperor. But he was secretly a
pagan. So they use the term Julian the Apostate—one who has been a Christian
and turned against it. You wouldn't call a pagan an apostate. He just wasn't a
Christian. But this was one who had become a Christian and turned away from it.
He didn't call himself Julian the Apostate; I don't know whether he used a
title after his name or not—I doubt if he did—but he declared himself to be a
pagan. He declared that the pagan religion was the true religion; and that
these Christians were the enemies of the gods; and that he was going to give
his favor to the pagans. This is 1, Julian's background.
2. Julian's Religion. His religion, as we noticed, was paganism. Every emperor from Constantine on, except Julian, has called himself a Christian. Julian very soon made it evident that he himself was worshipping the heathen gods and had no interest in Christianity. Whether he used actual words about it, I don't know. Julian's religion was such a religion as no Emperor had ever observed before—and such as probably no one of prominence has ever had since. He was a philosopher; he was a neo-Platonist.
He believed that—just as Neo-Platonists today in the Christian world believe—that their great philosophical principles are what matter; and that you can take Biblical ideas and can use them as symbols, as myths, to present their philosophical ideas. So he believed that all the myths of ancient Rome were means of presenting great philosophical ideas. He thought it very important that we should worship the gods; but in worshipping them, he thought of that as a philosophical attitude, an idea which incorporated ideas of ethics, and of forsaking the world and turning against physical pleasures—all sorts of ideas—many of which were doubtless taken over from his Christian background, either directly by him, or taken over by the neo-Platonists. But he insisted it was very important to worship the pagan gods; it was not just a form with him; it was a means of presenting the philosophical theories which he had.
And one of these philosophical theories which he had was like Plotinus had held; Plotinus was so ashamed of living in a body that he wouldn't tell anybody where that body came from; so nobody knows where that body was born, or his family background. While Julian thought we should pay no attention to the body, the Emperor Constantius and others had reveled in all kinds of washings and baths, trying to make themselves very clean and very attractive. Julian said, "Why try to glorify this body? Put your attention on the spirit and the mind." So he let his beard grow, and never even trimmed it; and he didn't bother to wash himself very often. He thought it was a sign of saintliness to put your attention on spiritual things instead of on cleanliness. And Constantius had had great banquets and tremendous feasts; but Julian ate very abstemiously; he did not want to let these worldly things interest him. But he did have a tremendous interest in glory. He had not the sins of the flesh, perhaps, but he had the sins of the spirit; he had the desire for glory; to be thought of as a great leader, the new founder of Rome, the one who had re-established the worship of the ancient gods.
Now he established himself in his palace in Constantinople; and immediately he sent word to the philosophers—the heathen philosophers—to come and partake of what he had, of his bounty; to live with him and discuss philosophy with him. And some of these philosophers, who had all their lives had barely enough to get a decent meal, nothing more; and they had barely enough to clothe themselves; they never had any money to speak of; and they had had an existence, not in poverty, but never with any of the luxuries of life; and they had enjoyed philosophical discussions. But when they got to the palace and had all these servants to do everything for them and make them comfortable, some of them enjoyed the comforts of life so much that they found it a chore to discuss philosophy. So pretty soon some of his philosophers were running wild in the palace, enjoying the luxuries and voluptuous pleasures; but trying to sober up and be tremendously interested in philosophy; and Julian had his sessions with them; and of course that made an impression on others.
Then Julian was very, very serious about the worship of the gods; and he marched in the processions for these gods; and by this time, apart from Christianity altogether, the world had become very cynical about these ancient gods; the bulk of the people thought of them as an ancient superstition; and when he would so seriously take part in some of these old ceremonies, the tendency of many people was to laugh at him and think of it as a lot of foolishness; but they enjoyed looking at his untrimmed beard and laughing about it, and things like that, rather than taking his paganism seriously.
One time he went to Antioch, which was perhaps the most Christian city in the Empire, very little of paganism left in it; and in Antioch, as he insisted on, he built a great new temple for one of the gods; and went through the ceremony, and the people of Antioch stood around and laughed at him. They laughed at him, and some of them ridiculed him; and when Julian came away from there, he sat down and wrote a poem ridiculing the people of Antioch. He sent back copies of this poem he had written; well, it was a much better poem than the average person could write, though he didn't have great literary ability; and most people felt that as Emperor, it was beneath him to engage in poetical arguments with the people of one of these cities.
Thus he had a good many disappointments as he attempted very seriously to advance what he thought—what he claimed was the true philosophy and the true religion. He found the pagans—many of them—taking advantage of the opportunities of advancement that he gave; but the bulk of them were rather amused at him rather than seriously interested. And he found some of the philosophers very earnestly participating; but many of them losing their heads when they had the opportunity of luxury which they never had before.
Julian's
religion, you see, was a religion such as you will find some people holding
today; but no one in a position like he was, with such opportunities to try to
make it effective, to make it enforced. And of course, it was combined with his
belief which, in these days, had been discarded pretty much. He found in some
communities, the old temple was just disregarded; there was one old priest who
went through the services, but hardly anybody came; he would go and try to get
new people to come; try to build it up. Of course many people would try to
please the Emperor; try to pretend interest; and then Julian's favor given to the
pagans led many of the pagans who hated Christianity to seize the opportunity
to do things against Christianity.
3. Julian's Attitude to Christianity. His attitude toward Christianity, as we have noticed, was that he wished to destroy it. But he was not simply a brutal pagan who wanted to kill the Christians and do away with them. He was a man who figured that he must work out a method to win people away from Christianity; to make the people as a whole see that it was wrong and get them from it; he didn't hesitate to kill people, if that was the way to do it; but he felt there was a better way and a more effective way.
So one of the first things he did when he became Emperor was to say the Christians are squabbling over differences among themselves; and all these Nicene bishops have been put into exile by Constantius; now if we let these bishops come back, then in every church you'll have two parties squabbling; and that will be one of the best ways to destroy the Christian church. So he gave word that all the bishops are to come back. And they began to come back; and as they came back, they found that in many cases the people welcomed back the bishop whom they had themselves chosen, and who had been a Christian leader until Constantius drove him away; they welcomed him back with joy, and were glad to get rid of the man Constantius had put in; and these orthodox men were on the whole more able men than the ones Constantius had put in as bishops. And in many places, it resulted in a step forward in the church instead of a hindrance.
Now in some places—like in Alexandria—the Arian Bishop that Constantius had put in had become very unpopular, not only with Christians but with the pagans particularly. George—the Bishop who had been put in the place of Athanasius in Alexandria—was a man who had been a court merchant before; he was not particularly trained to be a bishop, but he was devoted to the Emperor Constantius and to Constantius' ideas; and he was anxious to advance them. And one thing he did was to set to work to destroy the pagan temple. So George had been raising mobs against the pagan temples to get some of them destroyed, and the people driven out; and at least half of the people of Alexandria were still pagan; it wasn't like Antioch, a city almost entirely Christian. So there were many people who hated George; he also had a reputation for different kinds of graft he was mixed up in, and for having a large income; he lived very luxuriously; there were all sorts of stories.
Athanasius was popular even among the pagans; they considered him as a saintly man, and a man who did much good for the country; but George they considered as an evil man who was trying to advance Christianity at their expense, but who was also an evil man in himself; and now when Julian gave these orders, there was a riot in Alexandria; and the pagans rushed the palace of the Bishop, seized George and the people with him, and took them out and tortured and killed them.
And Gibbon—the sneering, cynical but very able British historian—he said that this George is the one from whom the English got their patron saint, St. George. Whether there is any truth to that I don't know; it seems to be very obscure where St. George of England did come from, who he really was. Some have said that he was the man named George who, when Diocletian put up his edict of persecution, tore it down, and was roasted over a slow fire, remember? It's difficult to know where the English got their patron saint, St. George. But of course, it would be terrible if it was this man, because he seems to have been a wicked man, and a heretic; but he was martyred. He was attacked by the pagans and killed. And the pagans had quite an upheaval in Alexandria there. But then, when the word was brought to Athanasius, "Julian says you can come back," Athanasius came back. Paganism had spent its rage in considerable destruction of Christian churches and of Christian individuals; Athanasius came back, established himself; he got things organized again in the Christian church; began going up and down Egypt preaching, and helping the people; and soon the Christian church was moving forward prosperously; and all through Egypt, the people had turned against the Arian bishops.
Julian said, "Instead of injuring the Christian church, I've helped them." He said, "This man Athanasius is the hard, wicked man; he is the one that does all this damage. He does more harm than an army against my ideas of bringing the Empire back to the religion of its ancient times." So Julian was determined to get rid of Athanasius; he sent orders to the general in charge of Egypt, "What's the matter, why don't you do something about this fellow who is criticizing me and is advancing the Christian church the way he is?" The general didn't do anything; Julian kept writing him letters; and finally the general decided he was going to be in danger if he didn't do something, and the more the better. So he seized Athanasius and put him on a boat to take him out of the country; but word got to Athanasius that the general was going to try to get back into Julian's good graces by having him killed. So Athanasius managed to slip out the door and get off of the boat, a little boat. He went off, and again headed out into the desert, and there he hid for the rest of Julian's reign.
So for a fourth time, Athanasius had to go into exile. But Julian found one way he could hurt Christianity was this: he gave an order: "Nobody is to teach the classics who is not a believer in the pagan gods." Now this sounds very logical. All over the Empire the educational system was learning to study the Iliad, the Odyssey, the great classical works of ancient Greece; these works were the foundation of modern education in the West; up to, say, 40 years ego everybody in the West studied these great classical works; they are among the greatest works of human genius the world has ever seen. They were the basis of the education system in those days; and of course much that we have added to them was not yet in existence. And many of the best teachers all over the Empire were Christians. Now Julian said, "How can a person teach these classics, teach about Jupiter and Venus and these other gods, if he doesn't believe in them?" So it sounded very logical. He said all Christians must be forbidden to teach the classics, because they don't believe in the classics. It sounded very logical, but it deprived hundreds of Christians of a good livelihood; and it took away many of the best teachers in the schools all over the Empire; and also it injured the specifically Christian schools, because they were giving a good education in the best learning there was—much of which was these old classics. This injured Christians as a class tremendously.
Immediately a friend of Athanasius, named Apollonius, set to work to write some new classics that would be Christian—a very clever idea—but the trouble is you have to have genius to do it, and Apollonius didn't have the genius. But he wrote some things that they could use as substitutes for the classics, and the Christians started in working in this direction.
Now another thing Julian decided to do was that he should try to injure Christianity by proving the Bible false. He read in Luke that the Jewish holy places would be trodden under foot until the times of the Gentiles would come to an end. Well, he said, "Here is Jerusalem; Jerusalem was destroyed by the Roman Empire; the pagans held it till Constantine saved it; since that time the Christians have held it. Hadrian made a law no Jew could come within five miles of it." He said, "We'll prove the Bible is a fraud." He quoted the verse in Deuteronomy [18:21-22] that if a prophet made a prediction and the prediction does not come true, you know that man is a false prophet. So he said, "Jesus said Jerusalem would be trodden under foot of the Gentiles till the days of the Gentles be fulfilled." Julian declared he was going to help the Jews. Now he said the Jews may rebuild their temple; he said, "I will give back the area of the temple in Jerusalem, that they may build a wonderful temple; and I will give them imperial help for it. And we will prevent anybody from interfering with their work."
So Jews came from all over the Empire; they brought great sums of money; they set to work to rebuild the Temple; they had even golden shovels for the beginning of the work, to have a great wonderful time in the beginning of the rebuilding of the Temple. The day came for it; imperial help was there; men were there to do it; and troops were there to see that nobody should interfere in any way with the Jews rebuilding the great temple of God. And Gibbon says—Gibbon, this sneering, cynical, anti-Christian writer says, taking his material from sermons written the very next year—he says that when they began to dig, they had scarcely more than begun, when fire began shooting up from the earth in a great series of explosions and such a noise, he said, a racket; and such a tremendous amount of fire shooting up that the workmen ran in terror; and they couldn't get anybody to continue with the work; they had to give it up for the time being; and of course Julian was dead before there was a chance to start it again; and today there is a Mohammedan temple on the place where the old temple used to be; and no Jew is allowed there on that spot; and it continues to be that way until today. Julian thought he would prove Christianity was false; now Gibbon says, of course the idea the Christians had, that this was a miracle, that God interfered and prevented it, is all nonsense. What happened of course is, Gibbon said, that there was gas which was imprisoned under the old Temple of Solomon; there in those caves which were closed in all this time; and that gas had accumulated and reached the point that, once they began to dig into it, the pressure was released; and it shot out and ignited and made fire and explosions and everything; purely a natural thing, Gibbon said.
Well, it was a natural thing; whether it was a divine act, we don't know. We have no Scriptural statement about it. All we know is that the Scripture said Jerusalem would be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled; and that that happened; and that the power of Julian and of the Roman Empire was unable to stop it. Whether it was done the way Gibbon guesses it was; whether perhaps in some other way; whatever happened, the fact is that Julian's plan was not carried through; and that the prophecy did continue to be true to this day; and if there should be a temple built there, we'd know that the days of the Gentiles were over; because until the days of the Gentiles be fulfilled, the Lord said it is not going to be.
Well, poor Julian had many disappointments, but in the end he decided he would be a second Alexander the great and conquer the Persian Empire; so he formed a great army; he had already shown great ability as a soldier; he led his army into the Persian Empire; he had great victories for a while; and then he got into the Persian Empire, and he got ambushed; his army was attacked from front and back and side; and he dashed about, calling to his troops to fight bravely; and he jumped from here to there in tremendous bravery in the thick of the thing; and a bunch of arrows came, and one of them went right into his liver. He was wounded, but he insisted his philosophers come and they discuss philosophy that evening, together; and he insisted he would soon be well, and reestablish his kingdom again; but within a few days he died. There was a story that, as he died, that he looked up into the sky and said, "Galilean, thou hast conquered." But whether it is true or not, we do not know. But the fact is that he died there; his rule came to an end; he was succeeded by a Christian.
And actually, I think Julian did more good for Christianity than any Emperor of the century. Christianity was becoming worldly; the Arians were getting control; the brief attempt of Julian to destroy it did more good for Christianity than the attempt of the Emperors to help it during this century. We'll have to continue there sometime in the future, but I have to run now...
...We
pray, our God, you will help each one of us to serve the Lord more truly than
in 1959; that you will help us not to repeat the mistakes of last year; that
you will help us to carry further the progress that we have made in the last
year; but, above all, we ask that this may be a year in which each of us will
be true to our Lord, and will follow the Bible more fully than ever before. Be
with us in this class and give us an understanding of these vital matters. We
ask in Jesus Name, Amen.
=====
First session after New Year break =====
I'm going to take a couple of minutes with some questions you turned in last time which impressed me as important.
[Note: some of these questions were discussed in earlier sessions. dcb]
1. "Have we applied the names, Sabellianism, Arianism, and others, in order to classify ideas in history or were these names actually used in the time history was happening?" A very good question, because it calls attention to the whole matter of so-called semantics.
It was about 25 years ago that a Polish refugee advanced his general theory of Semantics; and people all over the US began to accept it as the great true gospel; and there was a group of people who thought this was the greatest advance made in science in modern times; and others took the extreme claim of of his followers in this general theory of Semantics and denied the whole business. Actually both were right.
Semantics is not the extremely valuable thing that some of his followers think; but it is a very important thing in talk which is often forgotten; and great harm comes from forgetting it. And that is that names are only symbols; it isn't the word that matters, it's the thing the word indicates.
And if a thing exists, we may not have a word for it; or we may have a word for it; or we may have six words for it; but what matters is the thing, not the particular word we use. And therefore in the study of any subject, as in history also, we are faced with this problem. Here is something which has been called by a certain name; let's use the name because it's available for us. Here is something which is important, and there's no specific name used for it; let's make up the name so as to keep the thought clear.
And sometimes we do one, and sometimes the other. But as a rule—in historical study—the names that we use are either names that were used at the time, or which came to be used soon afterward. Sabellianism is a name which was used very soon, because Sabellius had a tremendous influence; and his theory is often called Modalism instead of Sabellianism; this is perhaps a better name, because it describes what it is—the view that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are just different modes by which God reveals Himself to us. But Sabellius was such an important factor in spreading this theory that, even though many people have held it in modern times who never heard of Sabellius, the name has been used theologically ever since Sabellius' time. And it is a good name to express this particular attitude.
Some people say, "Well how can you believe in the Trinity?" You say: "Well we have trinities everywhere, just look at light: here's the sun that sends the light; here is the heat that our body feels when the light hits it; here is the light around and we can see things when the rays of the sun come in. There are three in one. There's the sun, there's the light, there's the heat—three in one." Well, that is a pretty poor illustration of the Trinity, because it is a modalistic illustration [or consider the modalism in ice, liquid water, water vapor, also an invalid "explanation" of the Trinity -- dcb].
Now I don't say there's any harm in such an illustration, because somebody says how can there be three in one? Well you say here's three in one. Yes. It shows that it's silly to say there can't be three in one. But the fact of the matter is that, though analogies are useful there is nothing which is an exact analogy to the Trinity, because there is only one God but there are three persons in the Godhead. Now that is what the Bible teaches; we can't understand it, but we can see clearly that that is what is taught. And it is good to stand upon that, as the Biblical teaching clearly taught in the scripture.
In St. Patrick's day, people said "How can there be three in one?" Well, he said, "Look at this clover; one piece of clover, yes; but it has three leaves, three in one." And that showed it to people; they said, "All right, we can believe in three in one." But it's rather silly. But you'll find that most people are moved by silly arguments. There's no harm in using analogies and arguments to convince people of things, provided you have clearly in your mind that they're only ad hominem arguments used to get the point across, and not a real presentation of that which is vital. Because all illustrations of the Trinity, carried out logically, leads to a modal trinity. There's nothing to compare it with others, and modal trinity is not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible teaches God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit; three distinct persons, but one God. Only one God; not to say they are like each other; not to say their nature is exactly the same; but that it is just one nature; there's only one God, three persons. We can't understand that, but the Bible clearly teaches it; and the Christian church has held it ever since the Council at Nicaea; it had done so implicitly before that; and certainly it was the general idea that most people had, though they couldn't express it very clearly in language.
So Sabellianism is a good name for the modal view of the Trinity.
Now the name Arianism is a name which was used quite early to describe the followers of Arius; and the Arian movement was such a vital movement for 60 years—and its influence continued to some extent for another 200 years—that Arius is tremendously important—the founder and establisher of the movement—and the name has come to be so used. But all through church history we occasionally find people called Arians in their theology, who may be somewhat in error in that direction; their views may be quite a ways—but perhaps not exactly—like his views. So there's a danger in calling somebody now an Arian. He may err in some regard in the direction of Arianism but it's unlikely he holds exactly the view that Arians held.
2. Now here is an interesting question, "Did Constantine believe Jesus Christ was the Savior of all sinners?"
I think he did. But I don't think Constantine's understanding was very clear. But I think he understood there's no way of salvation except through Christ. I believe personally Constantine was truly saved, but I think he was like many a Christian, very much confused in much of his thinking.
3. Here is a very hypothetical question: "Had Constantine not established the capital of the Roman Empire, would it seem ambiguous to say the Roman Catholic system would never have developed into what it is today?" I think it is true that the fact that Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople gave the papal power an opportunity to develop, such as it would not have had otherwise, so I believe that was quite true. But there are other factors too, that's not the only one. But it was a definite factor.
4. Here's a question that I think we ought to note: "Was Athanasius guilty of any definite departure from the true teachings of scripture, or were all his views reliable?"
Well, I will say there is no man who ever lived, all of whose views are reliable. I don't think all of Paul's views were reliable, or all of Peter's. When they disputed one another they were probably both half right. I don't think that any human being ever had all of his views reliable; but I think the Holy Spirit—by the inspiration of the Spirit—kept Paul and Peter from putting erroneous views into what they wrote down in that which He intended should be part of our scriptures.
I don't know any man who knows enough to have all of his views reliable. But this we can say: that there are those who desire to follow the scripture truly; and who are ready to change any view once they are shown from the scripture that it is false; and who do follow in general most of the scriptural teaching. And there are those who simply cast the scripture aside, and follow whatever seems good to them; so there is a marked difference between them. And as to this difference, Athanasius was one who desired to follow the scripture; who did his best to study it and go where it led him; and he was a man of acute intellect, careful mind, great sincerity; and I know of nothing that he has written which is not thoroughly dependable. That is not to say that he may not have expressed ideas which would be false. The only thing that is dependable is the scripture. Don't follow any man. Any man may make mistakes. No one ever lived who didn't except the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now we go on then with our consideration of the progress of the history; we looked last time at E, The Reign of Julian. It's a very short reign, 361-363; but those two years are as important as any two years in the whole of the 4th century; and there is no century in Christian history more important than the 4th century. So those two years are as important as any two years in the history of the church, aside from the years of the actual ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that is because of the tremendous effect which they had in so many, many ways. Julian was a sincere pagan, who desired to establish a beautiful lofty religion of paganism; but he was practically alone in his belief in the kind of paganism he believed in. His efforts proved a failure; and it is perhaps an even greater tribute to the success of Christianity in the Roman Empire than the failure of Diocletian to destroy Christianity with fire and the sword, that Julian failed to destroy it with the much cleverer method which he attempted. It proved another failure; and Julian toward the end of his life was getting so disgusted with the Christians that, if he'd lived longer, he doubtless would have turned to persecution and had the same result that Diocletian had.
Julian died on his ill-fated expedition into Persia; and the tradition is that he said as he died, "Thou hast conquered, Galilean." Whether that's true or not, we don't know. The mumblings of a dying man may be very difficult to understand clearly; and there have been other theories advanced as to what he may have said. But—whether he said those words or not—they doubtless express what was in his mind. It was the great ambition of his life to destroy Christianity; and he saw his own efforts come to a miserable failure. He died and his army was there, with Persian armies all around. It was an untenable situation into which they had been led by Julian, who was a great general and an able military man, but he exaggerated his own ability, and attempted to do that which was impossible under the circumstances. The result was that they were in an impossible situation; and at Julian's death, they were freed from the impossibility of trying to go further and have an utter failure in what they were attempting. Sort of like Hitler, who showed a remarkable intuition in many military matters, and made many decisions against the advice of his generals which proved to be good decisions; but when he made his attack on Stalingrad, and the generals saw it was impossible—he was over-extending himself—he cast their words aside and insisted on pressing forward; and he lost a sufficient part of his army to perhaps cement his failure in the end. He became over-confident and went too far and over-extended himself, and that's exactly what Julian did here.
Julian with his fine army was surrounded by these Persian troops and he lost his life; but it was fortunate he did, because otherwise the whole army—doubtless many of them—would have been killed, and the rest made prisoners. And his death brought an end to the attempt of the Empire to re-establish paganism; he was the last emperor who called himself a pagan. The conflict between orthodox Christianity and Arianism had been in suspense during the reign of Julian, because Julian was against all Christianity; and all recognized it was much more important to try to maintain Christianity than it was to carry on this conflict, vital as it was, during that time; and Julian was impartially opposing both, and injuring both; but actually of course his reign freed the orthodox—many of them—from the oppression of Constantius so in a way was a help to orthodox.
But
we go on there to
F. The Downfall
of Arianism (363-381). I am going to deal with certain matters in these
years under separate heads later; I am not covering everything under them now,
but most of the important things deal with the downfall of Arianism. So most of
what we will say about this important period of 18 years will be under this
head.
1. The Attitude
of Valens (364-377).
And under that I'm going to put a subhead which is somewhat illogical, but yet
is all right for purposes of our outline.
a. The Reign of Jovian. This is not a political history; our primary interest is not in the Roman rulers. Our interest is in the religious life in the history of the church; consequently I'm putting one emperor under another, simply because our interest is in the religious affairs. But Jovian was the simple rough soldier who was elected by the army to succeed Julian, when in the middle of the campaign Julian died. So Jovian, this simple rough soldier, took over control.
And Jovian was a Christian; and not only a Christian but a man who held the orthodox faith. He was what you might call a simple Christian; he was not a Christian who was trying philosophically to explain how Christianity could be true and getting into this philosophical explanation, getting into ideas which were not in the scripture at all, like the Arians. He was a simple Christian; and the simple Christian, reading the Bible, finds clearly taught there is one God; but yet finds it clearly taught that Jesus is God; and also that Jesus and the Father are distinct; and knows that there is one God but there are three persons in the Godhead.
And so Jovian was a simple orthodox Christian; but his first effort must be to try to save his army; and so historians usually speak of the inglorious reign of Jovian. And I don't think it's quite fair to speak of it that way, because it was not he that made it inglorious; it was Julian's over-extension. Jovian faced a situation where he could go forward, and nothing but a miracle would save the army from annihilation; or he could recognize the fact; get rid of what he couldn't hold; and continue on that basis; and that's the only sensible thing to do, though it's a mighty hard thing for most people ever to be willing to do. When they get themselves in a failure, instead of writing off the failure and being content to be half as strong and go on from there, they will fight desperately to maintain the last part of what they had and lose out altogether.
Jovian did what was only sensible; he made a treaty with the Persians; and in order to get his army safely back, he had to give up three large provinces. He had to surrender a good part of that section of the Roman Empire to the Persians. He had to recognize a real defeat as what it was. But having surrendered this section to the Persians, it left the rest of the Empire with his army safely back there to defend it; and the Persians could not with any hope of success attack the rest of the Empire. He gave up maybe a twentieth of the Empire, but protected the rest. It was inglorious to have to lose it, but it was Julian's over-extension, not Jovian's error. Jovian gave this up; made this treaty with them; was able to move back with his army safely; and got back to Antioch, the second greatest city of the Empire; and when he got to Antioch he found Athanasius there who had come to see him.
Athanasius knew that Julian had been succeeded by a Christian; and he knew that this Christian was an orthodox man, a man who supported the orthodox faith; and this Bishop of Alexandria who had been driven out by Julian hated Athanasius more than he did any man on earth. Athanasius had been hiding in the wilderness, barely escaping with his life from Julian's men who were sent to kill him. He went to Antioch, was received very favorably by Jovian; he was told to go back with Jovian's favor, to Alexandria, but he spent some weeks with Jovian there in Antioch.
But before Jovian could do much as an Emperor, one morning they went into his tent and found him lying there dead. One theory is that there was not enough ventilation, and that the heating arrangement had fouled up the air in such a way that he suffocated. It was highly possible that he got some virus or germ disease or something; we don't know what it was, but there's no suspicion has ever been advanced—that I know of—of any foul play there. It seems to have been an accidental death, but his very brief reign came thus to a quick end.
And when Jovian died, the soldiers then picked out another soldier; and this was a brilliant man—an able ruler—one perhaps more fitted to be Emperor than Jovian was. His name was Valentinian. He's not particularly important from the viewpoint of church history—though very important from the viewpoint of secular history. They picked out Valentinian, and they made him emperor; and he was a very able man, and a very successful Emperor. And Valentinian looked on the problems of the Empire and saw—as Diocletian and Constantine had, or Diocletian at least had—that the Empire was too big for one man to administer by himself in the vital problems before it; and so, after he'd reigned for about a month, he appointed his younger brother, Valens, to be his associate in the Empire. And Valentinian took the western half of the Empire for his own power, and gave Valens control in the eastern half of the Empire.
Now in the western half of the Empire, Valentinian reigned as a fair and just monarch, on the whole. Once in a while he did things that we think were quite reprehensible—as most men do who have great power. And occasionally he made great mistakes, but on the whole he was an able and successful ruler. But the attitude of Valentinian toward the church was to give freedom of religion—freedom to maintain the belief in the people's rights, not to interfere with Christianity or with paganism, to give them tolerance.
So
Valentinian, was a good ruler, the type of good ruler of whom—from a religious
viewpoint—you don't hear much. That is, he neither injured the church nor
advanced it, but gave it protection and freedom. But his brother Valens was a
different sort of man.
b. The Accession of Valens. In 364 Valens became ruler of the Eastern half of the Empire; and Valens seems to have been a man who would make a good administrator over an area—with someone else having authority over him—and not too large an area. He might make a good honest reliable official in something, but not the top man. His abilities were not up to the position. He was far less able than his brother, Valentinian. He had the eastern half of the Empire to administer, and he was an Arian in his heart; he had good friends who were Arian in their views, and he was familiar with what Constantius had done to make Arianism dominant in the eastern half of the Empire—as long as Constantius held that half—and then the whole Empire when Constantius took over the whole Empire after the death of both of his brothers.
Valens wanted to reign like Constantius did, but he did not have the ability to do so; and he did not have the great name of Constantine as his father to give him the standing and authority such as Constantius had. So the result is that we find Valen trying to do what Constantius did and failing. Some historians think that if Constantius had lived another 20 years, he might have established Arianism so securely throughout the Empire that it would have taken centuries ever to have displaced it. We don't know. But we do know that Valens' efforts to do that had tremendous influence and importance, but they did not succeed as those of Constantius had.
Now
of course Valens had no authority in the west. And the west had never really
adopted the Arian views. Most of the leaders in the west were practical
Christians rather than theologians or philosophers; and they read in the Bible,
there's one God, Jesus is God, the Father is God. They accepted the Nicene
Creed. They—most of the westerners—had no great problem with following the
orthodox view as against Arianism, except that Constantius had forced many of
them—even one of the Popes—to sign an Arian creed. And he put many of them to
exile, and he used all sorts of influence to try to destroy their testimony and
make them take the Arian view, but he did not make great headway in the west
anyhow. But in the east—which was a great center of Arianism—Valens is now in
control, and he is anxious to advance Arianism. So we go on to
c. The Efforts of Valens to carry out the policies of Constantius. Well, Valens saw the situation. He saw that Julian had permitted the exiles to return; had let all the Christian bishops come back from Constantius' exile; thinking that now they'll fight among themselves; Christianity will suffer; but the orthodox men proved so much more able than most of the Arian men, that actually it helped Christianity instead of hurting it. And Julian, of course, had thus allowed Athanasius to come back; but immediately he had said Athanasius hadn't been approved in this, and he had ordered Athanasius to be gotten rid of; and Athanasius had fled.
Now Athanasius was back in Egypt—in Alexandria—and Valens gave an edict, that all bishops who had been restored by Julian—who had been exiled by Constantius and restored by Julian—were again to be exiled. And this of course would mean Athanasius was to be exiled; this was Athanasius' fifth and final time of being driven into exile. Once more he had to flee into the desert, but it only lasted four months. One thing, of course, that helped in Athanasius' case was the fact that when Constantius had driven him out, he had put in George as bishop; and George had made himself thoroughly hated by everybody in Alexandria. Finally George was killed by the pagans and he was made a Christian martyr; but probably he was killed more for general meanness than he was for being a Christian; and this was what the people of Alexandria might expect from Arian bishops.
This was hardly a fair conclusion—but people think that way—and along with the great excellence of Athanasius, the miserable character of George, whom Constantius put in his place, helped to strengthen the love of the Christians of Alexandria for Athanasius. Even the feeling of the pagans, that Athanasius was a thoroughly honorable man, a man who though he was very active in advancing Christianity, was a thoroughly honorable upright sort of man, that they were glad to have him in a position of authority in that city; and with the whole feeling as it was, after four months, Athanasius was able to come back; the people in Egypt stood behind him, and Valens grudgingly allowed him to have it, and this happened in other cities too.
So
that Valens—while in Constantinople he enforced the suppression of all orthodox
preaching—in many of the cities the orthodox bishops came back; and Valens'
efforts, while they caused considerable inconvenience to the orthodox people,
and gave the Arian bishops opportunity to spread their views, yet they did not
have anything like the weight and the force that Constantius' efforts had had.
And now
d. The Death of Valens. And the death of Valens touches upon another force in history which becomes of tremendous importance only a few years after this; and we'll have to say much about later. But at this point, I merely want to refer to it, that Valens in 377 led an army to meet a group of Goths who were trying to enter the Empire; and they came to the Danube, which was the border of the Empire; and there at the town of Adrianople, Valens and his army met the Goths. For a time the Roman forces seemed to succeed, but then there was a breakthrough, and the Goths pushed forward and utterly routed and destroyed the Roman army; it was the greatest defeat any Roman Emperor or Roman army had had for over 400 years. It was the most terrible, devastating defeat they had had in many, many years, and Valens himself was killed.
And the Goths rushed on into the Empire towards Constantinople; but Valens' widow, an energetic and courageous woman, rallied people round her; she rallied the generals, and they marched out with all the strength they could; the Goths were not particularly well-trained or well-organized, and the force of their attack was broken; the Empire was reestablished without any lasting injury to it, except the death of Valens, and of course of the other soldiers who had died. Well, we will go into the whole matter of the invasion of the barbarians in considerable length; but right now we will say very little about it. The Empire recovered at this time, but eventually it tottered. But as far as the immediate future was concerned, the Empire recovered.
Well,
those are details we'll have to look at later in connection with the great
Barbarian invasions. But right at this point, its principal interest for us is
that it put an end to the life of Valens and to his efforts to advance
Arianism. And before we look at what followed Valens, I would like to look at
some of the leaders from this time, and see what happened in the conflict
between orthodoxy and Arianism at this period.
2. The Last Years of Athanasius. When Athanasius came back again after his fifth exile, which only lasted four months, he was 70 years of age. For another seven years he was bishop, and they were very active years. Athanasius—we might mention—when in the reign of Julian he came back, in the first part of it when there was less interference than later, he had called a council in Alexandria, to which representatives had come from many parts of the Empire; and in this council, they had reaffirmed the orthodox faith; and it had brought together leaders of the Nicene view in the east with leaders from the west; and Athanasius wrote a descriptive account of this meeting, which was distributed and had great influence.
Now
Athanasius continued writing, carrying on extensive correspondence, considering
situations in different places, doing everything he can to advance the general
acceptance of the Biblical teaching about the Trinity, and to establish and
advance Christianity throughout the Roman world. The Romans always referred to
Athanasius as the Pope of Alexandria—the word Pope was apt to be applied to any
leader in the church at this time—but above all men, Athanasius at this time
was clearly recognized as deserving that title, pope. He was the father of the
true believers; a man of great ability; of fine Christian character; an
excellent organizer; a man whom his enemies detested; but the people who were
not his personal enemies recognized his great qualities; and his splendid
character; and his tremendous achievements. He did not live to see the end of
Arianism. He died three or four years before the death of Valens. But his work
had much to do with the destruction of its followers. Now the next man is far
less important and yet one who deserves a mention.
3. Hilary of Poitiers. I mention him because he was a bishop in France, at Poitiers—not particularly important for us, just used in connection with his name—but Hilary was a bishop in France who was devoted to the Nicene Creed; to the scriptural view of the nature of Christ; and Constantius had exiled him from France, which meant he came to the east; and coming to the east, Hilary came into cities where he found that the men who had signed some Arian creed were in control; the people who stood out strongly for orthodoxy had been driven out.
And Hilary might have organized a little group to meet secretly and to try to advance the views that the Bible teaches; but instead of that, Hilary is in exile there; he went and called on some of these people, got acquainted, and began to find that many of these bishops who were nominally with the Arians, actually as they studied the Bible were more and more convinced that the Arian view was false; and so the exiling of Hilary from France to the east resulted in affecting the viewpoint of many of these bishops, because Hilary came to them and talked to them and found out what their real attitude was; and he was amazed to find that many of them had moved toward orthodoxy, much more than he had ever dreamed they had; and then he was able in talking to them, to move them still further in that direction.
So
Hilary was quite an influence—particularly among the leaders in the east—in
preparing the way for the eventual victory of orthodoxy in the east. Hilary is
a figure who did much at this time to help; but the next three we mention did
far more. And so I want to mention these three, giving each of them separate
headings.
4. The
Cappadocian Fathers.
They are the three Cappadocian Fathers, so-called. You often hear them referred
to simply as the Cappadocian Fathers, because they were in that section of Asia
Minor called Cappadocia. The Cappadocian Fathers were three men, whose loyalty
to the orthodox faith and interest in it, and their very unusual gifts and
abilities, contributed greatly to the downfall of Arianism. The mere fact that
Valens died wouldn't reestablish orthodoxy; but when Valens died, these men who
had been working hard before, continued to work hard afterward, and their
influence had much to do with it. And I will mention first the most prominent
of the three:
a. Basil the Great. Now Basil is known in history as Basil the Great. Very few Christian leaders have the term "great" after their name; but with Basil it seems to have been well-deserved. He had studied in Athens; and one of the great pagan teachers in Athens, when asked who should be his successor, said, "Oh, it should have been Basil, if the Christians hadn't taken him away." That is, he recognized Basil was utterly out of sympathy with his viewpoint—he could never be his successor—but he recognized his tremendous ability.
Basil,
as a student in Athens, knew Julian when he was a student in Athens; and Julian
had great regard for Basil; but of course this was long before Julian became
Emperor. This was due to Basil's very attractive character and his abilities.
Basil was a good preacher, a good theologian, but not one of the top men in
these regards; but he was one of those of whom the NT says they have the gift
of government. He had a gift of administration. And as a bishop in Asia Minor,
he organized and administered in such a way as to have a tremendous influence
for the advance of solid orthodox Christianity. It is interesting that within
two miles of this spot where we are [Elkins Park, PA] there is a large
monastery, which is called the Monastery of Basil the Great. It is an Eastern
Orthodox institution; his name is one which the Eastern Church today venerates
very highly, and which the Western Church has always very highly regarded. He
was a man of great ability and faith; and he did much toward the eventual end
of Arianism, and toward the advance of Christianity in that whole area. He was
the most conspicuous of the three Cappadocian fathers. Now the next most
conspicuous of the three, we'll call
b. Gregory of Nazianzus. Now this Gregory of Nazianzus is so-called because he was brought up in Nazianzus, a town in the southwestern part of Cappadocia where his father was bishop; and his father was a prominent bishop; he never was a prominent bishop himself, but his father was the bishop of Nazianzus; and his son Gregory, as he grew up, became associated with his father; he administered the work of his father.
He was a man who was a good thinker and a fair administrator; but primarily he was an orator, and he was a very, very able preacher. Gregory was a very close friend of Basil, and usually they were on the best of terms; except that one time Basil did something that Gregory didn't like at all, and that made a little bit of a break; this didn't last long, but it had unfortunate results. Basil the administrator saw a chance to increase Gregory's influence by having Gregory made a bishop; so he got Gregory made the bishop of a little town called Sasima which was no more than a crossroads where the camel caravans stopped for the night. It was just a little crossroads town; it amounted to nothing; and the last thing Gregory wanted to do was live in a place like that; and his particular gifts had no real way of being exercised there, but he was made bishop of this little crossroads of Sasima; so he was a bishop, but nobody ever thought of him as Gregory of Sasima—he was Gregory of Nazianzus—named after the place where his father was a bishop, and where he had lived, and in which he spent the greater part of his life.
But the great achievement of Gregory was that, after the death of Valens he went to Constantinople—where orthodox preaching had been forbidden, except for the reign of Julian—for about 40 years. The people had not heard orthodox preaching, at least by anyone who claimed to belong to the church catholic. There were some Novatians there in Constantinople which were giving orthodox preaching. But Gregory went in there; he got a room in a house, and began preaching there; he gathered a group about him; and some say he was the greatest orator the Christian church had ever had up to that time; his great sermons on the deity of Christ began to attract more and more people, until eventually they had to build a sizable auditorium for him to speak in there, which they called The Church of the Resurrection. He preached there for about a year after the death of Valens; and he had a tremendous part in winning many of the people of Constantinople to the orthodox view.
So
Gregory's sermons there were tremendously effective; and when the council was
called by the next Emperor—which we'll look at a little later; I don't want to
tell about the council now, but just about the life of Gregory—the council was
called, and Gregory naturally was the man who presided at the council, to
organize religious affairs in the Empire;
and the council took a strong stand for the Nicene Creed; and it was
going to make him the Bishop of Constantinople, but then somebody said,
"Yes, but he's bishop of Sasima; and if he's bishop of one place, he can't
be made bishop of another place." He's bishop of this little crossroads
town, and Constantinople was a great city in which were hundreds of thousands
of people; and they needed a bishop, but in those days that was understood: if
a man is bishop of one place, he can't be transferred to be a bishop anywhere
else. So they declared he could not be bishop of Constantinople; and he then
surrendered his position as head of the council and retired from it; and
someone was appointed as bishop of Constantinople; but he went back to
Nazianzus, and there he assisted in the administration of Nazianzus, and kept
on with his preaching and continued to be a fine influence for the advance of
Christianity. But his great work was in Constantinople in introducing the
orthodox faith and re-establishing it there, though all through the life of
Basil he and Gregory were close associates and worked together. Now
c. Gregory of Nyssa. There's much in the lives of all three of these Cappadocian fathers which would be very interesting to go into at great length; but for our purposes, the main thing is that these are the three very great men whom God gave the church at this time, whose influence had so much to do with putting an end of Arianism. Gregory of Nyssa was the brother of Basil the Great; and he was the man who was more of a thinker than either of the others; not a great orator like Gregory of Nazianzus; not a great administrator like Basil, but he was a great philosophical writer and thinker; and his writings had much to do with swaying the thoughts of people who were interested in the details of arguments; and in clarifying for them the difficulties which all these years of Arianism had implanted in their minds.
So
the three of them—you might say—each of them supplemented the other's ideas.
They came after Athanasius; Athanasius was quite elderly when these were young
men. Their lives were largely spent in this period of Valens' reign; none of
them lived more than a few years after Valens; but they were great influences
in this period, and men whom every Christian ought to know a little about; but
with the general sweep of church history, all we need to know really is what
little I've said now. So I just mention here
5. The Elevation of Ambrose in Milan. We'll have more to say about Ambrose later, but Ambrose is a much more dramatic character than any of these three. Ambrose was bishop in Milan, northern Italy. He had such a great influence that, to this day, the churches in Milan use a different sort of service than they use in the rest of Italy, because they want to follow St. Ambrose. He was a man of tremendous influence, a great Christian leader. He had some influence in ending the Arian controversy. He was definitely and staunchly orthodox in these points, but he had influence in many other lines, so we'll have considerably more to say about Ambrose later, but here we want to just introduce Ambrose. He was a man of a fine Roman family; his father had been a high officer in the Roman Empire, and Ambrose was trained as a lawyer; he was expected to be a great leader in politics, and he was sent to be administrator of the section of Northern Italy which includes Milan. And the man who sent him from Rome himself was a Christian; and he said to Ambrose, "Go, not as a governor, but as a bishop." What he meant by this was, "Go, not as one to use force, but as one to win the people and persuade and lead them." But actually Ambrose in Milan gave up his political career and became the Christian leader of Milan. But we'd better look at the details of that tomorrow morning.
You all are aware, I believe, that Milan is the leading city of northern Italy. There are four most important cities in modern Italy. They are Rome the capital; south of Rome is Naples, which plays no part in ancient church history; north of Rome some distance is Florence—very important in the middle ages—but no part in ancient church history; and very far north in Italy is Milan. Of course also there's Venice, which is a medieval city. But Milan clear to the north is a city which was the second most important city in Italy around the year 350 AD. In Milan, there was the governor over that section of Italy; and there was the center where the bishop was—who had been the leading Arian bishop in Italy, or in the West. He had been put in there by Constantius; he had exercised considerable influence throughout the West. And I don't need to bother you with Arsenius' name; he is not particularly important for our history; but the thing we are interested in is, that at the time we are now looking at, during the reign of Valens—of course Valens was in the East—in the West was Valentinian who did not enter in.
This man Arsenius, quite an elderly man, died. And there came a great dispute over who would succeed him. The Arians wanted an Arian bishop, and the orthodox wanted an orthodox bishop. And it looked as if it would come to bloodshed, because the feeling was very, very tense between the two. Most of the rest held to the orthodox view, called the Nicene view; but this place had had the leader of the Arians, who had been very active and had a long career; and naturally he had quite a few followers in the area. So this looked as if it might come to bloodshed, and the local governor came to keep the peace; and there he was with the soldiers enforcing the peace in the area. And this local governor's name was Ambrose; he was about 30 years of age at this time, a man whose father had been administrative head of one of the three main divisions of the Western Empire.
Ambrose had been highly trained for speaking; trained as a rhetorician; trained as a lawyer; and as a military man, he had had important positions in the government; and when the Prefect of Italy appointed him to this important governorship in northern Italy, he said, "Go and act not as judge but as bishop," and by that of course he didn't mean leave the civil authority and go into the church; Ambrose wasn't even a member; but he meant go and be one who is interested in the welfare of the people; one who is not there as a harsh ruler to enforce the law; one who is there to enforce it with consideration for the people's welfare and for their good.
But people, in subsequent years, looked on those words as prophetic, what this Christian prefect who sent him had said to the young governor. Because when the people were there gathered together, the feeling would be to elect the successor of Arsenius as bishop of Milan; and it looked as if there might be a dangerous riot and it might come to bloodshed; Ambrose the governor arose, and he began to speak to the people and try to urge them to calm down; to consider the matter by peaceful means; and to make this election of the proper man to be bishop of Milan; and while he was speaking the voice of a child rang out, "Let Ambrose be Bishop." And of course nobody had thought of this governor, who was not himself a member of the church—though he was a catechumen—he was studying preparatory to entering the church; and a voice rang out, "Let Ambrose be bishop," and it caught fire with the people on both sides.
The people on both sides despaired of getting their own man in as bishop; they didn't know what would happen, whether it would come to bloodshed; in the end they'd all be pretty badly off; and the thought occurred, when this child's voice rang out, wouldn't that be wonderful, if this governor who is so highly respected would be the bishop of the church! And so immediately all the people on both sides joined in, "Ambrose for Bishop! Let Ambrose be Bishop!" And Ambrose told them he couldn't be bishop; the Scripture says, a novice cannot have hands laid on him suddenly. And that is good advice that Paul gave, "lay hands suddenly on no man," and in most cases great harm is done by suddenly picking out an person and making him a church leader.
But this is one of the few cases where it worked the other way. In this particular case, it worked excellently; nothing that Ambrose could do could dissuade the people. Both sides they wanted: the orthodox wanted an orthodox man; the Arians wanted an Arian; but neither of them had a strong man to present; and Ambrose was a man they had great confidence in. There was not an outstanding bishop of either party—an outstanding candidate—but here was a man who by his character and his attitude as governor had won the approval of everybody; they thought here was a man of the highest character, if only he could be bishop, how wonderful!
Ambrose even went and hid, and tried to get away from them; he did everything he could, but they kept after him, and said, "We want you for our bishop, and we feel it's the voice of God calling; the Lord wants you to be bishop." So Ambrose joined the church a few days later; he hurried up and finished his course of training; he joined the church, and then a few days after that, he was consecrated as Bishop of Milan. As Bishop of Milan he is one of the outstanding leaders in the ancient church.
His importance would be enough to justify a main head for him in our list, but the reason I haven't given him a head in one place is that his activity related to different issues rather than being connected with one main issue. He was established as the head of the church here in Milan; and he proceeded to deal with each issue as it came up, in the light of the scripture; and in the light of that he considered the will of God was. He was, like Basil, a man of outstanding administrative ability; and he established the organization of the church of Milan in a way that endured for a very long time. He took great interest in the musical part of the service; and he established the service in a way that the people were so devoted to him that, though the Roman Catholic Church today enforces a very considerable amount of uniformity throughout a domain, right there in Italy in this very important city of Milan, a different sort of service is used, one that comes from Ambrose.
We will have more to say about Ambrose later in the course. We simply notice his accession now, which comes during this period. When he became bishop, he immediately sold all his wealthy estates; and his gold and his silver he gave away to the poor; and he lived very simply thereafter—very simply, rarely a large meal, ate very small meals and was very, very modest in everything, his clothes, his eating and in most everything he did—and he devoted the greater part of his life to prayer; great parts of his time to the study of the Scripture and the Greek Fathers; and to theological writing; preached every Sunday; and all through the week was accessible at all times to those in need. He was looked upon as one of the great models in ancient times of what a Christian Bishop ought to be.
He was a very able speaker, a fine orator; people came for miles around to hear his sermons; anyone ever passing through Italy would have to go and hear Ambrose preach; he was not a deep thinker, but he was a careful thinker; and he read widely; his sermons were helpful and instructive, though not particularly brilliant. Naturally, as he read the Scripture and studied it, he became more and more convinced of the orthodox view about Christ. I believe he had held that right from the start, but he does not seem to have been quite sure of the group he would throw his influence with.
They
all had such confidence in his character that they just unitedly called for him
as bishop; he did, however, come to feel so staunchly for the orthodox view
that, when later on the Emperor of the western section demanded that one the
churches—which was having orthodox preaching—be turned over to the Arians so
they could have a church in Milan, Ambrose strongly refused; he said that it
was dishonoring to the Lord to have the denial of his full deity preached; and
in a church in which the deity of Christ had been preached, to have the Arian
view presented, he said under no condition could a church building be taken in
this way and used—taken away from the orthodox people—and used for that
purpose. And he was sufficiently strong in his personality and his influence to
resist the efforts of the imperial family to have that done. Well, we have more
to say about Ambrose later. We go on to
6. The Accession of Theodosius. This section on the downfall of Arianism began with an Emperor and it ends with an Emperor. We began with the attitude of a Valens which during most of this period, this 20 years, was the decisive factor in the East; but it was not entirely the factor, because as we have noticed the influence, the power, of the Arians was fading during this period. In the West it almost disappeared altogether; in the East it was fading. Ambrose joined with others in the corresponding strengthening of the people in their determination to take the Athanasian view; there were many of the bishops who had been semi-Arians, who were moved in this direction. In Constantinople—the very headquarters of Arianism, the Athanasian preaching began to come in; and now a decisive change came at the death of Valens—two years after Valentinian had died.
Valentinian, when he died in 375, was succeeded by his two sons, the older of whom was a boy of 16. And this boy also is not tremendously important for our history—his name was Gratian—but he did something which was very important. In 377, as you know, Valens died in the battle of Adrianople. And the Goths flooded into the land, but they were not sufficiently well organized to take full advantage of their victory; and in Constantinople, every resource was gathered to drive them back; and they were prevented from any large interference in the Empire. Many of them were taken into the Imperial service, became soldiers in the Imperial Army, all over the Empire. As a force—as a destructive force—it was able to hold it in reserve; but they didn't know when it might break out again and become terribly destructive toward the Empire. The Emperor Valens was dead; his young nephew Gratian, now 18 years of age, was ruling in the West. So everybody recognized that whoever Gratian would appoint to be Emperor with him as Emperor of the East would assume that position. It was not a time for argument, because they faced the great danger of the Goths; but it was a time for acceptance of whoever was properly made Emperor. And this young man named Gratian did a most remarkable thing.
His father Valentinian had had a quarrel with a man named Theodosius, a Spaniard who had been a general in England; he had done very excellent things for the Empire. But he had had a fight, a big argument, with Valentinian; and Valentinian had had him killed. And the result was that his son was living in retirement in Spain—the younger Theodosius. This Theodosius was an able man, a good general; yet he was a man who might be expected to nourish hatred against Valentinian's family because his father had been put to death by the order of the Emperor Valentinian. And yet Gratian—now in the serious danger to the Empire—recognized that Theodosius was the man of all men who would be able to organize the troops to hold back the Gothic menace; to put the East in proper condition again; and so he appointed this Spaniard, Theodosius, to be the Emperor of the Eastern Empire.
And he is the man whom we call Theodosius the Great, because he was an able man and a great ruler. And he is important for our church history—much more important for it than either Valentinian or Gratian.
Theodosius became Emperor in the East; and immediately he organized the troops; drove out the remnants of the Gothic invasion; established things in peaceful condition; and then he proceeded to direct his attention to other matters; he was a man who held the orthodox faith. Coming from Spain, he held to the full deity of Christ; and Theodosius might, under certain circumstances, have gone into an Arian group who had become Arian by the orders of Valens, and said, "Now you're all to become orthodox," and he might have enforced the changes. But that's not what happened. The backbone of Arianism had been broken—by the efforts of Athanasius and then of the three Cappadocian Fathers and the correspondence of Ambrose, and the efforts of Hilary of Poitiers, and the efforts of other individuals—and many were moving in the orthodox direction; and there were a few bishops here and there who had been orthodox all along; and Theodosius simply gave the legal stamp and support to a movement which had taken place already; a movement which might have been deterred a while; it was not the imperial power that made the change, but it did help in establishing it at the end.
One
of the first things Theodosius did was to let it be understood that the
orthodox people had freedom to preach; and they would not be interfered with.
They had been preaching before, but under constant danger. Now it was
understood that they had freedom to preach; and it was now that Gregory of
Nazianzus went into Constantinople and established his churches there, though
practically all the other catholic churches were preaching Arianism. There were
a few small organizations of the Novatian groups, which were orthodox; but
Gregory for about a year carried on his preaching and had great influence in
Constantinople; and then Theodosius the Emperor, called a council to meet in
Constantinople, in 381. And this is regarded as the second Ecumenical Council.
We will call it
G. The First Council of Constantinople. This council makes the downfall of Arianism definite, final and legal. Now, as you know, the word ecumenical, from the Greek oikoumene, was a word used for the Roman Empire. We find it used in Matthew, where it says that the order went out that the whole world shall be taxed—the oikoumene is to be taxed—that is the whole household or establishment of the Roman Empire. It is a secular word, a word which described the Roman power. But this word came to mean "world" to them, because they thought of the whole civilized world as part of the Roman Empire; though there were some pretty powerful civilized areas outside it.
But the Council of Nicaea is called the first ecumenical council. There were quite a few councils held after that which tried to become ecumenical councils; and even this council is pretty far from being an ecumenical council in the sense that everybody was represented; but it came to be recognized as the second ecumenical council, the Council of 381, held in Constantinople. Now this council was called by the Emperor Theodosius. He called it and Gregory of Nazianzus presided, who had been preaching in the town but had not been bishop of Constantinople.
The leadership in Constantinople was entirely in Arian hands. But the Council of Constantinople which met there was at the Emperor's orders, was in no sense an organization called by the Bishop of Rome. There was not even a representative of the Bishop of Rome present. All the representatives present were from the Eastern Empire. Thus it did not in its membership represent the whole area; but it is considered an ecumenical council, and came to be accepted by the Western church also as such. There was another council a year later at which the Bishop of Rome had representatives. And sometimes that has been confused with this and the statement is made that the Bishop of Rome directed the council through his representatives. That may have been true of the council of 382, but the Western Church, as well as Eastern, does not recognize the council of 382 as an ecumenical council. All parts of the Christian church—the Eastern church, the Western church, the Protestant churches—all recognize the first ecumenical council as the council of Nicaea, and the second ecumenical council as the council of 382.
So
then that is the first council of Constantinople.
1. The Calling
of the Council.
Like the Council of Nicaea, it was really called by an Emperor; it was an
Emperor's power, an Emperor's authority, an Emperor's desire, which made this
important meeting come into being.
2. The End of Arianism. The Council reaffirmed, with some very slight changes, the creed of the Council of Nicaea. So this council brought the end of Arianism. Never since has any portion of the catholic church held the Arian view to be a view which is accepted and correct in the church. All branches of the Christian church since that time have recognized the Council of Nicaea and the First Council of Constantinople. This decision, then, to reaffirm the creed of Nicaea did away with all the creeds that had been made through the years in between, that had been attempted to be forced upon the church by various councils which had been held—creeds which were Arian, or semi-Arian, which, all shades of creeds made and promulgated, accepted in one area or the other—but now they went back to the creed that was made nearly 60 years before, and in which Athanasius had had so large a voice as a young man. The Nicene Creed now was adopted as the official standard of the Christian Church, and it has been, ever since that time, held by all groups which have considered themselves, or have been considered, as part of the orthodox Christian church, whether they be Roman Catholics, whether they be Eastern Orthodox, or whether they be Protestants.
The early Protestant churches—all of them—affirm the first six ecumenical councils as being a part of the standard of their church. Well, that was very important then—the end of Arianism as far as the catholic church was concerned. It is not the end of Arianism politically, because of the fact that the tribes that later came in from the barbarians; who conquered the Roman Empire, and spread over it; those tribes were Christianized before they came in; and that of course meant a great deal for the Empire, in that they were far less ruthless or destructive or brutal than they would have been if they had not first been Christianized.
But during this period when the two groups were disputing over the Nicene Creed, there had been some very fine missionary work done among the Teutonic tribes. And this missionary work had won them to Christianity, the very excellent work of Ulfilas, the missionary—we'll say more about him later—but right in this connection just to mention him in connection with Arianism. Ulfilas had gone up there; had reduced their language to writing; and invented a system of writing for the Gothic language; and had translated all the Bible into their language, except the books of Kings. He said they were too warlike already, and he didn't want to make them more so by putting all these accounts of wars into their writing. So he left out Kings but he translated all the rest of the Bible into their language.
He did a wonderful pioneer missionary work in working with these people. "They're fighting over whether they hold the Nicene Creed or the Arian Creed, and I'm up here extending the Gospel and giving the truth to these people and winning these Germanic people to the Lord." And he was doing an excellent work. But it is extremely unfortunate that Ulfilas, in doing that, did not first get his ideas clear on this important doctrine. Ulfilas had enough of understanding of true Christian truth to bring those people to the Gospel and do a great work. But Ulfilas simply took the Arian teaching he'd been given, and he carried it with him and gave it to these people. And the result is that for some centuries to follow, these tribes that conquered the Roman Empire were Arians. And so Arianism continued as an active force after the end of the Council of Constantinople for some centuries, and a very important force, because the conquering barbarians were all Arians.
Ulfilas himself was an Arian. My guess would be that Ulfilas was a man whose emphasis was on the great things of the Gospel, rather than upon the errors of Arianism; that he was not a man who was advancing error so much as a man who had not studied through and gotten his mind clear on these important aspects. And if he had gone out to advance Arianism he would have done great harm; but he went out to advance the Gospel; and in advancing the Gospel he had not a clear idea on this important phase of the truth; and consequently gave the people wrong impressions in this regard. And the result was that for some centuries to come, the conquering barbarians were all Arians, but the cultured people of the Empire whom they conquered were all people who held to the orthodox faith; and it made a clash and a division between them.
Also the result was that, when new tribes later on were converted to Christianity by orthodox missionaries, these people became orthodox; then the people of the Roman Empire felt closer to these people than to the others who held to Arianism; and these people were the ones who won the prominence in the end, centuries later; and the Arian tribes eventually sunk into a secondary position in the Roman Empire, which they might not have had if there had not been that variance between them and the cultured people of the Empire caused by their Arianism.
Now
we'll look at all that later; that's just a brief glance ahead at this point in
speaking of the end of Arianism, which was brought about at the Council of
Constantinople.
3. Macedonianism. The Council of Constantinople dealt with the question of Macedonianism, a view which had developed shortly before the Council which I think we could call the last efforts—not efforts, let me think of a good word for it—it's Arianism defeated, but trying to at least salvage something from the defeat. That's what it amounts to. I don't think consciously that was what happened; but there were those who, giving up their objection to the full deity of Christ, admitting that Christ was fully God, they said, "Yes, but the Holy Spirit is an influence sent out by Christ; it is ridiculous to say that the Holy Spirit is God also."
Now this was not a great controversy in the church. But there were a few people who became excited about denying, that what they now agreed about Christ, also applied to the Holy Spirit. With most people the big division was over Christ. Was Christ fully God? No, he was a creature; he was the greatest of all creatures; he made the universe; was God's instrument for the creation of the world; but he was a creature. Oh, well, then if he wasn't fully God, neither was the Holy Spirit. Others said Christ is God. Well, then, the Holy Spirit is too. That was simply enough. There were only a few who held this divided view.
The Macedonian heresy was the view of Macedonius who said, "Yes, Jesus Christ is fully God. But the Holy Spirit is not God." That's the view. And for most people there was one position or the other. Jesus Christ is fully God; so is the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is a creature; and the Holy Spirit is an influence. One or the other. But the Macedonian view did not attract any widespread support. It was not a primary issue, but there were a few people urgently holding it; and at the Council of Constantinople, it was brought before them; and the result of it was to insert into the Nicene Creed a reference—a specific reference—to the deity of the Holy Spirit; to make the Trinity clear, not just of the deity of Christ. Those who held the deity of Christ before had believed the Trinity; now they made it explicit. The Holy Spirit is also just as fully God as Christ.
So that is Macedonianism. It was not a big factor in discussion at any time, but it is good for us to get our views clearly in mind. The Holy Spirit is God, third person of the Godhead. In old English, as in German, gender was more or less a matter of grammar rather than of person. In German today you'd say "There's my spoon, I will put him in my pocket," because a spoon is masculine in modern German. And you say "There's my fork; I will eat with her," because a fork is feminine in modern German. A knife is "it", neuter gender. A girl in modern German is neuter, unless she's a flapper, and then she's masculine; and I read in German when I was there about the Australian flapper, how he goes with his boisterousness, because a flapper is masculine in German, as most words ending in "-er" are. The grammatical gender is something we have lost in modern English, because in modern English genders almost disappear; we practically use it for nothing except that which has personality.
So the grammatical gender has just about entirely disappeared in modern English. But it still existed to quite an extent when the King James Version appeared. And therefore the Holy Spirit, which in Greek is apt to be called "it" because of the grammatical gender, like in older English. But certainly it is more correct in modern English to use the "he," which is what we use for persons. And consequently if I ever read that the Spirit, it does so-and-so, I usually change the "it" to "he," because we use "he" for persons today and "it" for inanimate things and influences. When you say "it" for the Holy Spirit, it suggests that you think the Holy Spirit is an influence rather than a person. The King James translators did not have any such idea; it simply is a change in the language, not a change in the thought. So for the Holy Spirit, people ignorant in theology can be confused when you speak of "it" referring to the Holy Spirit. We speak of "it" of a baby and of a child.
Well, this Macedonianism is an important thing theologically to have a clear understanding of. That God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is God, one God, but the three persons in the Godhead. At the Council of Nicaea, the argument was, is Jesus wholly God? The argument wasn't about the Holy Spirit; but those who held that Jesus was wholly God also believed the Holy Spirit was wholly God. But others who held that Jesus was created—and that there was a time when he was not—also held that the Holy Spirit was created. But now it is made clear and explicit that the Holy Spirit is God just the same as Jesus Christ is God. So that was not any change in Christian thinking, but it is a making explicit and clear in statement that which Christians had always believed—whether they expressed it clearly or not—because it is what the Bible teaches.
So
the denial of Macedonianism is an important part of the activities of the
second ecumenical council. Now there is another part of the activities of the
council, which also did not seem very important to it. But which in the light
of later events has assumed a tremendous importance. And this is its relation
to another heresy which we call
4. Apollinarianism. Now Apollinarianism has nothing to do with Arianism; it is entirely different. Arianism is named after Arius. Apollinarianism is named after Apollinarius. We have already mentioned Apollinarius in our lectures; but anyone here who has not previously had either church history or some field of ancient history I am sure did not recognize my allusion to him, because it was very incidentally that I mentioned him. You probably remember what I said about him, but not the name. I did not then point out his importance. Apollinarius was a fine Christian man, a friend of Athanasius. And Apollinarius was one who stood strongly for the orthodox view and against Arianism.
And when Julian said that Christians could not teach the classics; how could they teach Homer if they don't believe in Jupiter? How can they teach the Iliad and the Odyssey if they don't believe in these gods? And he drove out all Christian teachers from the schools, something which irritated the Christians, and even the pagans thought it utterly unjust. When Julian took that stand, most of the Christians contented themselves with complaining about the injustice of it; but there was one Christian I mentioned to you just briefly in passing, who did not do so; but he felt he should do something about it; and that was a man named Apollinarius.
And Apollinarius said, "Let's write some new classics ourselves," so
he set to work to write classics for the Christian students to study; these
would give them culture and fine training and all the benefits they got from
studying the classics, but yet they wouldn't have any false gods in them. And
Apollinarius had that idea—an excellent idea, a fine thing to do—but a thing
that an individual cannot do, any more than an individual could make a perfect
translation of the Bible, or a standard translation. It is a growth; it takes
time. It takes minds with genius to do it. One can make a good translation of
the Bible; somebody else can improve on it; and eventually we may get a very
excellent one, as in the case of the King James Version. And I hope we get one
like that sometime, for our modern world.
But Apollinarius' attempts did not succeed because he did not have the consummate genius that would be required to do so; but it was a good idea; and as you see from it, Apollinarius was a man of originality; a man with a little too much originality, and too little thought and real practicality. But in his zeal for the truth of Christ, and in his fear of denial of any part of the honor that should come to Christ, he said, "Jesus Christ is God," and he said, "The incarnation consists of the taking of a human body and a human soul, and putting a divine spirit within them." So Christ is the divine Spirit, which used a human body and a human soul. So Jesus Christ was neither God nor man, according to his theory. The Christ was God—wholly God, second person of the Trinity—but Jesus Christ was a divine spirit with a human body and a human soul; and that was Apollinarius' theory. And this view which Apollinarius presented, comparatively few people followed him, but enough to make it a religion. And Athanasius wrote two articles against it—strongly denying it—but Athanasius, out of regard to his old friend, and the fine character of his friend and his loyalty to truth, did not even mention Apollinarius in his argument; he simply dealt with the view, with the false view, and showed it was an error; that Jesus Christ was fully man, as well as fully God. I guess Apollinarius did really believe he was fully God, but he didn't believe he was fully man; so it's sort of a mixture. Instead of being entirely God, fully God, and fully man, it's sort of a mixture.
At this time the usual view of human nature seems to have been the trichotomous view. I found one or two books which state that he said he believed that Jesus' body was man, and his soul was God. But I think these people that say that are trying to present his view in dichotomous terms. He himself, I believe, presented it in trichotomous terms. It was the divine spirit, human soul, and human body. But this view did not gain great acceptation; it was not widely followed. It would not have been a serious situation, if it were not for other things that came later, that were extremely serious, which looked back to this, in a way, as their start. So in the light of later history, Apollinarianism is far more important than Macedonianism is, in the light of later history. We'll be referring back to this a great deal in some subsequent lectures.
But Athanasius had denied and opposed Apollinarianism before his death in 373, though not mentioning Apollinarius by name. And at the Council there was very little argument about it. People simply recognized it was wrong. Jesus Christ is fully man and he is fully God. And consequently the council simply took an action declaring that Apollinarianism was incorrect—was not the scriptural teaching.
And in the history of the Christological controversies over the person of Christ, this is the first step, which we look at later, as we look at the more important later steps. But in the history of the Trinitarian controversies—the controversy over the full deity of Christ—this is the final step which validated the action of the Council of Nicaea, which affirmed the full deity of Christ.
So we have these two controversies: the Trinitarian controversy which is about Arianism; and the Christological controversy, about whether Jesus Christ is, in addition to being fully God, is also fully man. And for this second controversy, this is the first stage of it. I'd like to separate the two stages. I'd like to deal with one and be done with it, and then take the other later and deal with it, and in between I'd like to deal with the historical events of this period. But I can't do it, because the important action on both is taken at this same council.
Actually
nobody at the council realized how important the action on Apollinarius was. It
was only the first step in a long controversy and a tremendously important one.
And one which every Christian should be familiar with, because it will help us
to keep from getting off into incorrect ideas like that. But those were the
main actions of the Council of Constantinople.
5. Gregory and Nectarius. Gregory of Nazianzus, as you know, was the great preacher who introduced the orthodox view in Constantinople. He presided at the council until his enemies said, "He can't be bishop of Constantinople; he's already bishop of Sasima." And in the end, he left the council, retired into private life, and Nectarius was appointed bishop of Constantinople. Now he's not an important theologian like Gregory; but this important event occurred at the time. He was a friend of the Emperor's—a political official—put in this important administrative post in the church; and it was a foretaste of the fact that the Bishops of Constantinople would be, to a great extent, simply the creatures of the Emperor. It became almost a division of the Empire in Constantinople. But Gregory, a man of fine intellect, a great moral leader, a man who has been active in the Lord's work all his life, he just dropped out of the picture, out of the active administration. That was one of the less happy activities of the Council at Constantinople. We shall continue there tomorrow morning.
We were speaking yesterday about the first Council of Constantinople. Just at the end of the hour we spoke about 5, Gregory and Nectarius, and I mentioned that Gregory was one of the great figures of the 4th century. This is of course Gregory of Nazianzus; and it is very interesting to note how historically there are certain names like that which may be spelled in two or three forms—Nazianzus, Nazianzen—both forms are used. John Wycliffe—his name is spelled in about six different ways. There are individuals concerning whom there is tremendous variety in spelling their names. On the other hand, there are certain points in the name which are tremendously important. For instance, if you to know the name Paul—we have Paul of Thebes—whom we're going to discuss today. If you get Paula, you have a woman's name, not a man's. Only a difference of one letter, but Paula is a woman's name; and a woman who is very prominent in the life of St. Jerome, whom we will not be able to discuss until next semester. Usually we finish Jerome this semester; we're behind this year, I've gone too slow.
But in names, there are factors which are very important this way; and factors that may vary. For instance, Constantius Chlorus is not one of the great figures of the course, but he is a man of whom I told you a few things of some importance; Constantius Chlorus was the father of the great Constantine. Constantine's name of course, in Latin would be Constantinus. His father was Constantius. In the case of Constantius, it's easier to say Constantius than to shorten it to Constanti, so we keep the ending. In the case of Constantinus we drop the "us" ending because it's easier in English to say Constantine, but the two are very different. Then Constantine himself had three sons, of whom one was Constantine II, one was Constans, one was Constantius, like the grandfather. There the names, you see, are very important.
I probably won't ask you to describe the career of Constantine II or the career of Constans, because though I described their careers, they are quite unimportant to church history. But Constantius and Constantine are two of the most important emperors in ancient church history. Naturally I have to mark down very heavily if you get their names confused, because both of them are so tremendously important in their own right. But whether you say Nazianzus or Nazianzen, it's perfectly clear which you mean; there's no confusion with anyone else. Well, Gregory of Nazianzus was the presiding officer of the council, he was in line to be the Bishop of Constantinople, he was the natural one to succeed to the leadership of that section of the church.
But those who were jealous of him presented the fact that he was bishop of a little town of Sasima—this little crossroads—and they said he can't be bishop of another area when he is bishop of that one. He can't do that; it's either one or the other. If his followers had been at all quick, they would have said, "Well Peter was bishop of Jerusalem—at least some people think he was—and then they generally think he was bishop of Antioch, and then many think he was Bishop of Rome. He was bishop in three different places; why shouldn't a man be transferred as bishop? But it seems to have been the custom during several centuries at that time, that if a man was bishop of one area, he could not be bishop of another.
So Gregory was dropped; and he retired and did good work the rest of his life; but did not have the position he should have had; and he was succeeded by Nectarius. who was an officer in the government. Somebody asked me after class something about that "politician," the way he referred to Nectarius. Well that term "politician" is an unfortunate one, because today if you say a man is a politician he is usually one who doesn't succeed. If he's a statesman, he's the one who did succeed. We say a statesman, for a man who has good ideas and gets them across. Eisenhower was elected, so he is a statesman. Stevenson was defeated, so he's a politician.
But in actuality the word politician need not have that bad sense. And in connection with Nectarius, it should not have a bad sense. Nectarius was a good political official. He was an administrator of the Emperor. He was a man who was an excellent worker; he was a good organizer; and there is nothing that I have ever come across critical of his administration as Bishop of the church of Constantinople. So he is not a man whom we should criticize for any flaw in his character, as far as I know.
But we should criticize the fact that they put in a man who was a good secular official, instead of a man who was a fine theologian like Gregory, for this important position in the church. It laid the foundation for later on having other men who were politicians and not theologians at all. Nectarius did a good piece of work, but he was there as the Emperor's administrator; he was the Emperor's official, whereas a man like Gregory would have considered himself the Lord's servant; and he would have done what he thought right before the Lord, and he would have pleased the Emperor as far as he could without compromise. Nobody thought of pleasing an Emperor in promoting Ambrose. They simply felt that he was the man ideally qualified; and Ambrose, when he became Bishop of Constantinople, ceased to be governor; and he not only ceased, but he gave up all connection with the government; he gave away all his property; he devoted himself exclusively to the work of being a good bishop.
Whereas Nectarius was a good official, a fine, honorable, successful administrator, under the Emperor; and when he felt that it was the Emperor's desire that he should administer the church—and the bishops felt that that would be a good thing to do—Nectarius took it as an honorable task to do to the best of his ability. But he was still working to please the Emperor; rather—I think he was a real Christian—he felt he was pleasing the Lord, but he was primarily as an administrator. Now of course there is a place for that in a church. Many a man who is an excellent theologian makes a terrible mess of trying to administer affairs of the church and the board; and there is a real place for a good administrator. But here it wasn't merely that you had a man who was a good administrator rather than a theologian; but you had a man who, by his very situation, was the representative of the Emperor. In the very capital city—in the most important church—a man of constant looking to the Emperor to know the policy and then using the ability he had to carry it out. It set the precedent for the church being a sort of department of the state, which in Constantinople it rapidly became. Whereas in Rome it went the other way; with no Emperor there, the head of the church came to be—to quite an extent—the head of the State too.
The usual custom was that the people of the area—of the church—selected the bishop. That was the custom. Now it came to be—in some areas, especially in large churches—that the clergy, the presbytery, did the actual selecting, but it was supposed to be with the approval of the people. The people in the smaller churches, and originally in all, they seem to have had a voice. I shouldn't say originally, because Paul appointed the first bishop. Paul went through Asia Minor, appointing bishops for the church; so the earliest we find is the appointment of the bishops, by a travelling Christian leader; but in our history of the early church, after the end of the book of Acts, it is of the people of the church selecting the bishops. And then, in the bigger churches, it comes to become narrowed down; that instead of a big vote among thousands of people who hardly know the man, it is the group of ten or twenty or a hundred presbyters, who are supposed to have better judgment in selecting a bishop; and they select a bishop but the people are supposed to concur, or else it's not valid; that's the theory, at that time. But here we have a situation where the bishops are met at this extraordinary conference, and they are dealing with the capital city of the whole Empire; and it wasn't a regular meeting, it was an occasional thing, these ecumenical councils, and they felt it was the proper thing to do, for them to select. Quite generally, the Emperor seems to reserve the authority of selecting a bishop. And right here, I'm going to anticipate a little bit; because here is a point we must bring out sometime in our course. It is tremendously important. But just when has varied from time to time. I think I might as well make it clear right now. That is this. The theory of the Church of Rome was that the people selected the bishop. But that theory came to be—as in most other large cities—that it was the clergy there who selected the bishop. And that is the theory of the Church of Rome today, that the clergy selects the bishop of Rome. Now they have abandoned that theory in all other cities, but in Rome that is the theory which they hold, that the Roman Church selects the Bishop of Rome. Now to any of you not familiar with this, that may seem very strange, because the rank and file of people don't know that. My guess is most Roman Catholics do not realize it, but that is the theory of the Roman Catholic Church. The old theory, first the people select a bishop; then the clergy of the town elected their bishop. Now the Pope selects the bishop of Philadelphia; at least he gives his approval, and some of his representatives select him, but the Pope selects the bishops today of every place except Rome; but in Rome the old theory is held, it is the clergy of Rome who select the Bishop of Rome.
Yes? [student] Yes, when you started, I thought I was going to say you were right; I thought you were going to say, "Am I wrong in thinking it was the cardinals who select the Pope?" I would have said you were right. They select the Pope, but the cardinals have absolutely no authority to do anything in the world except select the Pope. Yes? [student] No. The Pope has a staff but whether members of that staff are cardinals or not is merely academic. Yes? [student] Yes, the Pope is largely a figurehead anyway. What I'm trying now to bring out, is what is the College of Cardinals. The College of Cardinals is the clergy of the city of Rome; that's what the College of Cardinals is—the clergy of the city of Rome. Now the city of Rome, the Roman metropolitan area which extends shortly beyond the city, includes a large enough area that there are five bishops within it; they're subordinate bishops. I forget the exact number—I think it's five—but there are a certain number of bishops; a certain number of presbyters; and a certain number of deacons, who theoretically comprise the local clergy of the city of Rome today. And these men, being clergy of the leading city of the world—at least it used to be 2000 years ago, and according to their theory it is still—these men are called cardinals because they are the clergy of the leading city of the Roman Church, and so they called them cardinals. Their theoretical function is to conduct the services and administer the work of the local churches in Rome. Actually they don't do that. There are other men appointed to do these things, but they don't have the authority.
When Cardinal Spellman is in Rome, he will probably go to some little church in Rome and conduct the service, because that's the place where he theoretically is the priest of that church. That's his—that's what makes him a Cardinal. But actually, somebody else does all the work ordinarily. But theoretically that's his position. So when the Pope dies, the Cardinals come from all over the world to Rome—because they're the local Roman clergy—to elect the Bishop of Rome. It's a very strange theory, because they don't use it in any other cities. And the way that they talk about it, most people don't realize this, but any historical book will tell you that is the fact. It may be in a footnote somewhere, but it's there. Yes? [student] No. Theoretically they are the ministers of the churches in Rome. Theoretically that's what they are. And their connection in the provinces is entirely accidental. Mr. Deshpande, you had a question? [ student] It is the custom nowadays, yes. [student] That's right. When the Pope died, the Cardinals came from all over the world, came to Rome. Why did they come? Because, theoretically, they are the clergy of the churches of Rome. Theoretically, the clergy of all these little churches of Rome came together to elect their Bishop for their city; and that's the only reason these people have any right to vote for a Pope, is because they are theoretically ministers of the various churches in Rome. The fact that a man may be Archbishop of New York, or the leading man in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, gives him not a single bit of voice in determining who a Pope is going to be. But the fact that he is the minister of some little church in Rome gives him the right to be one of those who votes on the selection of the Bishop of Rome. That is the theory. And what we read in our papers is, "Pope appoints 15 new Cardinals, three of them Americans." The Archbishop of Los Angeles may be made a Cardinal. That's all the papers say. But if you would get the precise documents from them, you would find that the Pope said that Archbishop McIntire of Los Angeles was made deacon of some little church somewhere in Rome; or maybe priest of one of the churches; he might even be bishop of one of the smaller suburbs in Rome. But that is what he actually is made, but they call it a Cardinal because by a Cardinal they mean a member of the clergy of the leading city of the Roman Empire church. So the old theory is still maintained in their statements, in their using it. And a Cardinal has absolutely no authority to do anything except to hold a service in the little church in Rome of which he is clergy. The fact of his being a Cardinal gives him no authority whatever. But the fact that the Pope appoints him Archbishop of Los Angeles gives him authority over the Los Angeles area; but the Pope could just as well appoint somebody else. Any bishop could be appointed to that position. The fact that he is Cardinal has nothing to do with his authority to do anything. The Pope has a staff enrolled which performs; he has hundreds of men, because theoretically it's the monarchy, the absolute monarchy of the Roman Church. And he has a staff in Rome of hundreds of men to have knowledge of events all over the world, to have their representatives all over the world; and some of these men are Cardinals, and some are not; and whether they're Cardinals or not has not the least thing to do with their authority; their authority is solely because they are appointed by the Pope. The only thing a Cardinal has any right to do by virtue of his cardinalship is to hold a service in this particular little church in Rome with which he is connected; and, when the Bishop dies, to have a vote on the appointment of a new bishop. So it's an instance of an old practice having been maintained when the theory behind it is largely forgotten. But it is there and expressed officially in the statement whenever a new Pope is elected. Yes? [student] Yes. When Truman became President of the United Sates, he requested his cabinet, the cabinet of Roosevelt, all continue. He declared his great desire that they continue, and no one should leave the administration. Within six months, I don't think more than one of them was left. But theoretically, he was continuing the administration of Roosevelt; and he gradually made such changes as he desired to get the men in who would carry out his policy; which is the function of the cabinet, to carry out his policy. The same thing is true in the Roman Church. When the Pope is elected, there is not a new man elected by a change of administration, and a repudiation of the old. No, the Pope dies. And when he dies, everybody outwardly is extremely sorry that he dies. And outwardly, they feel if only we could get another man just like him, that would be the wonderful thing; and the new Pope who comes in always tells everybody how sorry he is the old Pope has gone; and if he can only be exactly like him, that is his greatest desire. But actually he may have been one of his critics for years. And it may be his great desire to get rid of most of these men on the papal staff as soon as he can; and if that's his desire, within a year he will be rid of them. Because he has the authority to; but it's not good form to do it within a year. But that is one thing that has given strength to the Roman Catholic Church, as compared with secular organizations. This silly practice has come in—in most monarchies—that the man's son succeeds him. And a man' s son may be wonderfully qualified to succeed him; or he may be miserably qualified to succeed him; and that has been the ruination of most monarchies—this crazy practice of thinking that ability is inherited; and that a man—because he happens to be the son of the king—is the man fitted to be the next administrator; but in the Roman Catholic Church that theory is definitely not held—their Pope isn't even supposed to have a son—though many of them have—he is supposed to be interested only in the welfare of the church; and when he advances his son to high position like one of the Popes, we'll find out later, made his son, a Cardinal. They call it nepotism. Nepotism, the Latin word nepos means nephew; and theoretically it's his nephew he's advancing, rather than his son. But that—when he does it—it is contrary to the established rules of the church. The Pope can do just about anything he wants, except two things: he cannot change the doctrine of the church; and you'll notice that when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, he never claims to add a doctrine; he interprets things; he never adds because he has no authority to add. Theoretically, the doctrine is something that has been passed down to him, and all he can do is interpret. And the second thing he has no authority to do is to appoint his successor. He has no authority to do that; the Cardinals appoint his successor; Popes have appointed 40 cardinals, and made them all promise before he appointed them that they would vote for the man he designated for his successor. That has happened on a few occasions. But when the Pope died, they voted for somebody else. Once he is dead, he has absolutely no authority over them; and that is thoroughly understood, that the Cardinals have absolute authority for the election of a Pope. Now theoretically, the people of Rome are supposed to approve it. But that part of it was given up years and years ago. And for many centuries now, all the people of Rome have had a chance to do has been to say, "That's wonderful!" But in the early days, in the ancient church, the people of Rome had a very vital voice in this. Yes? [student] Well, theoretically, the Pope attends services two or three hours a day; reading scripture; reading prayer forms; doing little various religious forms. Theoretically, he does these; actually he has to make his confession every day, and go through everything that he may be asked by his confessor, who is a Jesuit. And he is to receive people, and give them his blessing. He's supposed to appoint leaders for other sections of the church; to answer petitions sent to him, and all that. Well, now, theoretically, he is the monarch; the Catholic Encyclopedia says the bishop is the monarch of his diocese; that's the Roman Catholic term today. He has absolute authority in his diocese. Well now, the idea that the Pope is monarch over the other bishops—they will admit—is not as solidly grounded as that the bishop is monarch of his diocese. But in their theory—as they carry it on—the Pope actually is the monarch over the other bishops. That is theoretical. To administer all these parts of the church would take a dozen men working very, very hard. And actually the Pope has a large staff—which the Jesuits actually control. And this staff does the great bulk of the work. But the Pope has to give his sanction and his theoretical approval. The very fact that the Pope is an aged man means that the bulk of the work is done by younger men. But the Pope has the right to interfere if he wants to; and he will on most anything, if he takes a notion to—unless the Jesuits have done it, and if they have—he may interfere and nobody will pay any attention to him; because they know the Jesuits have the real control. Most of them hate the Jesuits, but they know they have control of the church.
It was not until the time of the Reformation that the Jesuit order was founded. But at the time of the Reformation, this new order was founded by a Spanish soldier who was invalided; he could no longer be a soldier, and he desired to get for himself a great name in the church—not being able to get it in the army. His name was Ignatius Loyola; he was a man of tremendous ability and great will power, and he designed the order to be a military organization. He called it the Society of Jesus, society being the Latin word used for a military company. Most Roman Catholic monastic orders brag that they have had so many bishops and so many archbishops belong to their order. The Jesuits don't do that. The Jesuits forbid their men to take positions of importance. They stand in the background, and they rule indirectly. And the last Pope had a Confessor who was a Jesuit; two of the leading members of his top Cabinet were Jesuits.
The Head of the Jesuit Order has his headquarters a few blocks from the Vatican in Rome. They even call him the Black Pope; and very few people pay any attention to him, because he stays behind the scenes; but he has the authority, yet he in turn has other Jesuits whose duty it is to spy on him. So every Jesuit is spied on by other Jesuits. And it works as a coordinated military organization to control the church; and it succeeds; and nearly all the other orders hate the Jesuits intensely, but they can do nothing against them, because it's the Jesuits who control; in my opinion, if it were not for this very, very skilful force of Jesuits, the Roman Catholic Church would have died out a century after the Reformation. But it has kept he church alive and active. The Jesuit has at least a dozen years of very, very careful training before he can be made a full Jesuit. They are a close-knit organization, a small order of people all over the world; very active, ready to do anything that they are ordered by a superior to do.
There was a boy who used to play with my wife's brother when they were children; he became a Jesuit, and his mother told my wife's mother that the boy told her—this is when he was 30—when he was a man, that he could never, wherever he was, go to sleep at night without feeling that in the morning there might be fastened to his pillow when he would wake, a note that would say, "Go to Madagascar," or some other place. Anywhere in the world, and he must immediately be ready to pick up and go in a few minutes—wherever he was ordered—because they were completely under the orders of their superior. And they are trained to be perfect gentleman, very, very pleasant; if there's an inquisition to do, or anything like that, the other orders have to do it; and if the other orders don't do it, then they get them punished; but they themselves always are very, very nice and very pleasant; they're the nicest people in the world to be with. You don't know what they're thinking, but you know that in their attitude they're very, very nice, because they're trained to be. It's an extremely able arrangement which they have. And if you find "S. J." after a man's name, it means he belongs to the Society of Jesus.
The Pope has to confess to his Confessor every day. Theoretically he selects his Confessor, but actually it's usually a Jesuit. And he confesses to the Confessor; and the Confessor can either absolve him from his sins, or he can order him to do penance; and the Confessor can tell the Pope he's got to crawl on his knees up the stairs of three or four churches in Rome, and publicly confess his sin, if the Confessor wants. But if he wants to, he can forgive him for it; and that's a good thing to help keep the Pope in line with the Jesuits. In l870 it was made a doctrine that the Pope is infallible. It sounds as if anything the Pope says is true; but if you take the exact words, what it means is that if the Pope speaks ex cathedra, it's infallible; and when does the Pope speak ex cathedra? About once in 40 years. And when he does, he weighs his words so carefully that it's often pretty hard to know exactly what he's saying. Now of course that theory didn't originate till 1870; but according to the theory, all Popes have been infallible in ex cathedra pronouncements; but it's pretty hard to tell which pronouncements were.
One of the things that has given strength to the Roman Catholic Church is that the Pope can't appoint his successor; and so if everybody recognizes that the Pope has made a pretty poor job of it, it's pretty likely that the Cardinals will try to appoint somebody quite different as his successor. And he has no power to dictate. That's one of the things that has given the church strength.
Now this was in relation to Nectarius; but I thought it was in order to bring it out here, because the time we took on this we would have had to take later on; let me say this, that a good considerable portion of our time the rest of this year, and a fair amount next year, will have to be spent in dealing with the development of the Roman Catholic Church. And we will have to spend a good bit of time discussing the activities of various bishops of Rome.
Now there is a book written by a movie director named [John] Farrow. [rcn: he is the father of actress Mia Farrow.] And this man Farrow has written a book; he's a movie director, an able fellow I believe; he's written a book called The Pageant of the Popes. Every time I've given this course, I have assigned considerable sections from this book. We have eight or ten copies in the library. The book has been published with the imprimatur of the Bishop of Los Angeles. It's gone through many printings, sold by Roman Catholic bookstores, and it has been got out in a paper-bound copy.
If you are dealing with Roman Catholics, it's one of the finest things you can have. The important thing, of course, in dealing with Roman Catholics, is the Gospel: to show their need of a Savior; and that Christ is the all-sufficient Savior; and the New Testament is more important than any other book in dealing with Roman Catholics. But there are times when it is necessary to discuss the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. It is very helpful to have this book by Farrow, which is published by with the imprimatur of the Bishop of Los Angeles. Near the end of the book Farrow says, "The fact that so many of the Popes have been so wicked and so weak and all this, and yet the organization has succeeded right up to now, is proof that it is a divine organization, and not a mere human one." Now this is a pretty silly argument, but a person who is already devoted to the church will accept the argument.
But if instead of that, you make these statements to a person about there was a Pope who did this, and a Pope who did that; you make about five statements like that; and they say, "What silly fool propaganda!" Well, you say, "It's true." "Why that's utter nonsense, I don't believe a word of it." Well, they say, "If I believed that, I'd quit the church, I wouldn't stay if this is true; of course I know it isn't true." And after you've committed them about that, then bring out the book with the imprimatur, and show them what is specifically stated in that book; and that ought to shake a person's faith in the organization. Now the vital thing, of course, isn't that; it's bringing them the gospel; bringing them the NT. But there are occasions where this could be very helpful; and I like to bring evidence on these things—not from a Protestant source but from a Roman Catholic source—and practically everything that I will say in this course about the Roman Catholic Church will be taken from Roman Catholic sources. There is much that is wrong about the church that would be hard to prove from their own doctrine; but we don't need to go into that material because, there is plenty that is easily proved from their own doctrine; and so I feel that to be aware of that which their historians admit to be true is worthwhile.
We'll look at that next semester.