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The first source of authority was a basic confession of faith, which emerged almost immediately,
He was responsible, he said, to hand on this tradition, which was central to his calling as an apostle. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received,” he wrote to Christians in Corinth, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles”
The apostles appointed leaders who could be trusted; those leaders did the same, which was intended to create and sustain an unbroken succession from the apostles to the generations that followed, forming a circulatory system that moved from the heart outward, bringing life to the world.
But he also had confidence—in the power of the gospel, which was summed up in the rule of faith, preserved in the book, and passed down through the ministry of bishops, of which he was one.
Authority is by definition derivative; his was inherent. Authority is official; his was personal and original. Authority is often coercive, won and wielded through the exercise of power; his was humble and sacrificial, surrendered rather than seized.
Modern city planners view churches as “dead space” because they rarely welcome passersby, unlike coffee shops, markets, bakeries, pubs, restaurants, and galleries.
But the movement’s success can easily lead to an error in judgment on our part, which is to idealize and romanticize it, as if the movement embodied a kind of pure Christianity.
It might have been successful; that does not mean it was without weakness. There was clearly a gap between aspiration and outcome, conviction and behavior.
If anything, some scholars argue that the gradual emergence of a Christian empire undermined true—and original—Christianity rather than strengthened it; or, short of that, it changed it into something very different from what it had been before Constantine.
to emit the “aroma of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:15). Never once portraying images of their God (at least in this early period), as the Romans did, Christians strived to reflect the image of God by how they lived
Martyrs seemed to be the victims; far from it, they were the victors. They languished in prison; but they were really enjoying freedom.
Christians did not angle for power, march on Rome, tell the emperor how to rule, or work for his demise.
He noted that there was nothing more alien to Christians than political activity. Still, he wrote, as Christians “we acknowledge only one universal commonwealth, the whole world.” The church, he continued, was united “by a common religious profession, by a godly discipline, by a bond of
hope.
Rome considered it a cancer within the empire, spreading the disease through Rome’s entire body, challenging its authority and way of life. But Christians believed the opposite. Christianity was the source of life and health, like white blood cells, combating the cancer—brutality, social stratification, abuse of power, greed and materialism, and immorality—that was Rome.
and were even allowed to remain single with no loss of social status.
seems llike we needto reemphasze this
Evangelism was a process that gradually resulted in a change of belief (rule of faith), belonging (the house church), and behavior (the ethic of the kingdom), culminating in the rites of initiation—baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist—and thus full inclusion into the community of faith.
But the strong identification of Christianity and America seemed heretical to him because it tempted Americans to confuse the two identities, and thus to import American culture (e.g., wealth) to other parts of the world, always “in the name of Christ.” “As a Christian,” he said, “you are my brother. As an American,” he continued, “you want to be my master.”
This setting required Christians to learn the art and skill of improvisation. It prepared them for the unexpected; it made them creative and resourceful; it equipped them to be effective witnesses in the Roman world.
We “go to church” in the same way we go to work or to the gym. Moreover, for many of us, religious devotion favors the personal and private—studying the Bible and praying, reading Christian books, listening to Christian music and podcasts, decorating our homes with Christian art—over the public and communal, probably because it is more convenient. Worship is an event that occurs for one hour on Sunday; it plays a fairly limited role in the lives of most Christians, including serious Christians. Our spotty attendance in worship is proof enough of that.
Christian worship provided an alternative. It began with the Christian view of time and place.
Christians, he reported, gathered on the first day of the week, whether they lived in city or countryside, because God created light on the first day of the week, and he brought his Son back from the dead on the first day of the week, too, which was also called “The Eighth Day” or the day of re-creation. “But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world; and Jesus Christ our Savior on the same day rose from the dead.”9
addition to the weekly rhythm of the Lord’s Day, Christians followed a daily rhythm, too. They turned to God multiple times each day, both privately and communally, like young children who keep circling back to their parents to express a need or a joy.
Hippolytus, instructed that Christians pray at the third, sixth, and ninth hours (9:00 a.m., 12:00 noon, 3:00 p.m.), and it cited the events surrounding the death of Christ to explain why. In the third hour “Christ was displayed nailed to the tree.” In the sixth “as Christ was fixed on the wood of the cross that day was divided, and a great darkness descended.” Finally, in the ninth hour, for “at that hour Christ, pierced in the side, poured forth water and blood and lit up the rest of that day and brought it so to the evening.”12 In what he called the “3+2” principle, Tertullian urged that
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But in most cases churches had only one copy of these texts, not many. Thus, however literate, the church functioned—and by necessity had to function—as an oral community of the Word.
lectors read “the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets” for “as long as time permits.”22
Tertullian drew a sharp line between what he called “old-world prayer” and Christian prayer, the former practiced by Jews (and, by inference, others) who expected immediate earthly benefit, the latter by Christians who looked for a different kind of outcome.
Before dying, the martyrs sang hymns, recited Scripture, prayed, recalled the drama of Christ’s death, and saw visions of heaven.
Tertullian underscored the significant difference between the Greco-Roman way of life and the Christian way of life. The former indulged the appetite as if the world were all there is; the latter resisted the temptations of the world because of the greater reality of the kingdom, which would redeem and reclaim the world. Christians, he concluded, rejected worldliness, but not the world as such.
These, then, were the primary—and early Christians would say necessary—elements of worship: observing the Lord’s Day, following daily rhythms of prayer, signing the cross, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, memorizing the liturgical script, learning the Two Ways, practicing discipline, cultivating virtue, receiving the sacraments, and the like.
Like many Roman intellectuals, he practiced traditional religion even as he believed in the existence of one transcendent, mysterious, inaccessible, incomprehensible God, as Plato affirmed. He saw no contradiction between the two. They addressed different needs—one the needs of the empire, the other the needs of the soul.
He admitted with frustration that Christians had clearly surpassed traditional religion in their moral way of life and care for the poor.
After assuming the office of bishop, he founded a community to care for the destitute, which took on the honorific title “the Basileiad,” a place of refuge that grew so large that it became its own city. It welcomed and housed immigrants, provided medical care for the sick (e.g., lepers), and trained the unskilled for jobs. It met social, physical, and spiritual needs.
Basil charged that if the rich truly loved their neighbors, they would have divested themselves of their wealth long ago. “But now your possessions are more a part of you than the members of your own body, and separation from them is as painful as the amputation of one of your limbs. Had you clothed the naked, had you given your bread to the hungry, had your door been open to every stranger, had you been a parent to the orphan, had you made the suffering of every helpful person your own, what money would you have left, the loss of which to grieve?”11
Powerful
Christianity, he observed, produced people whose moral life rivaled the teaching and conduct of the philosophers. “For their contempt of death is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For they include not only men but also women who refrain from cohabiting all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of the genuine philosopher.”
They protected the sanctity of marriage and the marriage bed, opposed divorce, held husbands accountable to the same moral standard as wives, and honored women—virgins and widows—who chose not to marry or marry again. They condemned abortion and infanticide, and they rescued infants who had been abandoned and left to die. They supported orphans, widows, and prisoners, cared for the sick and buried the dead, not just their own but their neighbors’, too. They welcomed people into their homes and gave sacrificially to those in need.
After exposing the corruption of the Roman way of life—abortion, adultery, violence, infant exposure—Athenagoras testified that Christians not only rejected these bankrupt patterns of life but blessed Romans when they were being persecuted, for “it is not enough to be just (and justice is to return like for like), but it is incumbent on us to be good and patient of evil.”
It might have been faulty science, but it was persuasive theology. “For they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead, turning the common formula that is normally an empty courtesy into a reality.”32
As we know, institutions are necessary once service moves beyond the immediate, spontaneous, and personal. It is one thing to give twenty dollars to a homeless person standing on a street corner with sign in hand that reads, “Homeless. Anything helps. God bless.” It is another thing altogether to get that person off the street and into a bed and job.
One office in particular presided over this entire ministry of benevolence and service: the office of bishop, though presbyters played a similar role under the supervision of bishops. As I have already noted, the office of bishop emerged
catechumenate enabled converts to become functional disciples and thus helped to form a community of Christians whose example of faith and obedience provided a clear and winsome alternative to Christianity’s major competitors—traditional
This huge gap required time, patience, and purposefulness. Anything short of that would have undermined the very faith that Christian leaders proclaimed, Roman critics opposed, and martyrs died for, a faith rooted in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Are we here in America? For true christianity?
Paul used it to refer to Jewish instruction in the law (Rom. 2:18) and to his commitment to speak five intelligible words in a known language rather than ten thousand words in an unknown language (1 Cor. 14:19), which implied these five words were especially fundamental and important.
The references to athletic training and competition appear often in early Christian literature, and the intent was nearly always the same—to encourage and charge Christians to submit themselves to a regimen of discipline.
To be sure, Christians no longer expected to die for Christ; but they could still live for him and, through rigorous training, become “bloodless martyrs.” Thus the need to endure in faith remained. The cost would be different, of course. But there would still be a cost.
I think emphasis is needed here today
For Christians the contest was on earth; but the reward—the trophy—would be heavenly.
Ultimate rrward, but also intermediate rewards here
Origen, the most learned and prolific Christian writer of the third century, used Israel’s journey from Egypt to the promised land as a metaphor for the catechetical process. He did not equate baptism with crossing the Red Sea, as we might assume, which happens early in the story, but with crossing the Jordan River, which means that the crossing of the Red Sea and passing through the wilderness belonged to the catechetical process. Once again, Origen underscored the importance of training. “When you abandon the darkness of idolatry and when you desire to arrive at the knowledge of the divine
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First,
Mentorship, therefore, functioned as a necessary part of the training program.
Why don't we do this?
Thus sculptors could not make idols, actors could not play roles in dramas that taught traditional religion, teachers could not instruct children in ancient myths, and civil magistrates and military officers could not preside over ceremonies that buttressed the state’s power, especially religious power.
