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August 11 - October 9, 2017
It was rather an entire religious campaign for the restoration of ancestral religion—a religion that was being particularly undermined by Christianity.
The emperor’s purpose was not to create martyrs, but apostates.
what he ordered was not that Christians as such ought to be persecuted, but rather that the worship of the gods was now mandatory throughout the empire.
The imperial decree found Christians unprepared for the new challenge.
What the authorities did was to arrest Christians and then, through a combination of promises, threats, and torture, to try to force them to abandon their faith.
One of the results of this persecution was that a new title of honor appeared within the church, that of the “confessor.”
Decius’s persecution was brief.
the great question before the church was what to do about the “lapsed”—those who, in one way or another, had weakened during the persecution.
Given the great prestige of the confessors, some thought that they were the ones with authority to determine who among the lapsed ought to be restored to the communion of the church,
he did believe that the unity of the church was of supreme importance. Since the actions of the confessors threatened that unity, Cyprian felt that he had to reject those actions and to insist on the need for a synod to decide what was to be done with the lapsed.
the Western church was repeatedly embroiled in debates regarding how that purity should be sustained while still having the church be a community of love.
these writings present only a partial picture, saying little of the life and faith of the rank and file, or of their religious practices.
recent sociological studies indicate that the vast majority of Christians during the first three centuries belonged to the lower echelons of society, or at least did not fit well in the higher ranks.
It was mostly out of this rank and file that legends and writings arose with a very different tone from that of Justin and the other Christian scholars.
this naive credulity should not lead one to underestimate those common Christians.
there are indications that some common Christians were well aware that there was an unavoidable clash between the goals of the empire and the divine purpose.
Worship was one point at which Christians of all social classes had a common experience.
the main purpose of this service of worship was not to call the faithful to repentance, or to make them aware of the magnitude of their sins, but rather to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and the promises of which that resurrection was the seal.
A new reality had dawned, and Christians gathered to celebrate that dawning and to become participants in it.
From that time, and throughout most of its history, the Christian church has seen in communion its normal and highest act of worship.
The most remarkable characteristic of those early communion services was that they were celebrations.
First there were readings of scripture and commentaries on them, with prayers and hymn singing.
Then, after dismissing those who were not baptized with a prayer and blessing, came the second part of the service, communion proper, which opened with the kiss of peace.
Christians believed that communion joined them not only among themselves and with Jesus Christ, but also with their ancestors in the faith.
More frequently than in catacombs or cemeteries, Christians gathered in private homes.
In order to preserve and symbolize the bond of unity, the custom arose in some places to send a piece of bread from the communion service in the bishop’s church—the fragmentum—to be added to the bread to be used in other churches in the same city.
Every Sunday was a sort of Easter, and a day of joy; and every Friday was a day of penance, fasting, and sorrow.
Part of what took place at Easter was the baptism of new converts and their being added to the congregation.
In preparation for these events, that usually took place at Easter, there was a time of fasting and penance.
The earliest feast day in connection with the birth of Jesus was January 6, Epiphany, the day of his manifestation.
Baptism was, besides communion, the other great event of Christian worship.
as the church became increasingly Gentile, it was necessary to require a period of preparation, trial, and instruction prior to baptism.
Early in the third century it was customary for those about to be baptized to fast on Friday and Saturday, and to be baptized very early Sunday morning, which was the time of the resurrection of Jesus.
It is clear that early in the second century there were three distinct positions of leadership in the church: bishop, presbyter—or elder—and deacon.
the emphasis on the authority of bishops and on apostolic succession was in response to the challenge of heresies in the late second and early third centuries.
Particularly in the New Testament, there are indications that women also had positions of leadership.
during the second century, in its efforts to combat heresy, the church centralized its authority, and a by-product of that process was that women were excluded from positions of leadership.
it soon became customary for the church to support its widows, and to give them particular responsibilities.
apparently marriages in the church also had another function: to acknowledge unions that were not strictly legal.
official, legal marriages among believers could have serious civil consequences, depriving the wife of some of her rights and standing.
in the early church worship centered on communion,
evangelism did not take place in church services, but rather, as Celsus said, in kitchens, shops, and markets.
most converts were made by anonymous Christians whose witness led others to their faith.
he substituted Christian festivals for the old pagan ones, and made sure that the Christian celebrations outdid the others.
It is clear that the enormous spread of the gospel in those first centuries was not due to full-time missionaries, but rather to the many Christians who traveled for other reasons—slaves, merchants, exiles condemned to work in the mines, and the like.
it is not likely that there were in their meeting places many decorations or symbols alluding to the Christian faith.
Since communion was the central act of worship, scenes and symbols referring to it are most common.
Generally, what one finds is very simple art, more allusive than realistic.
the ancient Christian church was composed mostly of humble folk for whom the fact of having been adopted as heirs of the King of Kings was a source of great joy.
After the persecutions of Decius and Valerian, the church enjoyed a long period of relative peace. Early in the fourth century, however, the last and worst persecution broke out.
