God: A Human History

by Reza Aslan

The influential Church elder Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–108 C.E.) framed this position into a succinct slogan: “One God, One Bishop.” Any violation of the former would necessarily diminish the authority of the latter. The Christian’s duty, in the words of Ignatius, was to obey the bishop “as if he were God.” As Clement I (d. 101 C.E.), the first bishop of Rome and thus the first pope, warned, anyone who failed to “bow the neck” to his authority as bishop was guilty of rebelling against God and should be put to death. The Church hierarchy’s insistence on maintaining One God, One Bishop made little impact either on the followers of Marcion or on the many Gnostic sects that flourished in the early years of Christianity. What it did do, however, was lodge a contradiction in the heart of the burgeoning faith. Because if the Church was going to insist upon accepting the Jewish definition of God that arose out of the Babylonian Exile—God as singular and indivisible—then they needed to come up with a way to explain how a Jewish peasant from the low hills of Galilee could also be God. It was an issue that threatened to tear the Church apart and put an end to Christianity just as it was about to achieve its greatest success. —