The Church of Rome

The Apostolic Fathers vs. Heresy

The Saints of the Church

The English word saint is derived from the Latin word sanctus, meaning holy.

The apostles and the New Testament writers view all Christians as saints because the Lord has set them aside as believers in Christ.

By virtue of this sainthood, Jesus’ righteousness is transferred to Christians and His Spirit sent to dwell in them and to sanctify them.

In the history of the ancient church, the word saint began over time to be applied more narrowly to those who had most seriously undertaken the disciplined, ascetic Christian life.

The word saints no longer applied to all Christians.

“Special” Christians received this title, most notably martyrs and others who performed “special” acts of devotion.

As the church more and more defined this category, it soon developed the belief that deceased saints could offer a special service to Christians by hearing and aiding them in prayer.

These beliefs resulted from and contributed to the view of hierarchicalism.

Hierarchicalism

Hierarchical thinking means that all of reality is layered, with those at the top of this hierarchy being the most important.

The figure of a pyramid serves as a sufficient illustration, with the most important figures forming the top with a descending scale of prominence.

Hierarchical thinking does not allow for equality, but it promotes inequality.

For a democracy like the United States, this thinking seems preposterous. However, the ancient world, particularly Roman society, generally thought in these categories.

This thinking influenced all areas of life.

Over time, the church began to view both heaven and earth through this perspective.

The concept of patronage contributed to this hierarchical thinking.

A patron advocates the cause of an individual lower on the social pyramid because this individual does not have the proper social status to do so himself.

This thinking bled over into the church, and soon Christians attempted to secure patrons, such as the saints, to plead their cause to those of greater importance, including God.

The conversion of Constantine (?-337) to Christianity brought a massive influx of pagan conversions to Christianity.

Used to a hierarchical, pagan system, pagan converts latched on to the saints as patrons, similar to what they did with pagan gods like Apollo or Hera.

Ancient theologians did not understand how this system of praying to saints could occur. It either meant the saints were granted omniscience, which did not seem right, or God heard the prayers and relayed them to the saints, which was counterintuitive. So theologians, like Augustine, counted this as a great mystery.

This hierarchical approach naturally placed Mary very high up the religious pyramid, for she is the Mother of Jesus.

People looked to Mary to wield influence over Jesus, for as a mother she possesses sympathy, and as Jesus’ mother she holds significant sway with her son.

The veneration of Mary and other saints proceeded from a misunderstanding of the humanity of Jesus.

Many Christians misunderstood the incarnation, and they did not regard Jesus’ humanity to be of a type prone to empathy and understanding.

Although the Trinity alone receives worship, the saints, according to the ancient church and the Roman Catholic Church, should receive veneration, with Mary receiving hyper-veneration.

A number of criticisms may be leveled at this view.

The veneration tends to look too much like worship.

How are the saints to hear prayers and respond?

Why does the New Testament not command or allude to this practice?

Why is praying directly to Jesus ignored and inferior?

In addition to veneration of saints, the church began to attach importance to relics: religious objects or the body parts of venerated saints.

Christians began to believe that saints would pay more attention to prayers at places in which their former body parts resided.

This phenomena spurred much fraud and false piety, and it resulted from a failure to understand Scripture and to replace God’s Word with a system of hierarchicalism.

The Office of Bishop

As mentioned previously in these studies, bishops served as senior preachers in the early church.

The word bishop comes from the Greek word episcopos, meaning overseer.

Paul uses the Greek word episcopos synonymously with the Greek word presbuteros, which means elder.

A presbyter is an elder, pointing to wisdom and maturity, while an episcopos is an overseer, pointing to responsibility.

These are not two different things, but they describe the same office from a slightly different perspective.

As the church expanded, the bishops began to serve as administrative figures in major cities.

The church in the ancient world grew first in cities and then expanded into the rural countryside.

The English word priest is a contraction of the Greek word presbuteros.

As the hierarchical mindset began to pervade the ancient church, bishops gained power and authority over the priests, particularly those priests who left the city for the rural countryside.

The idea of superior and inferior clergymen evolved as hierarchical thinking grew, and bishops soon gained regional authority.

After time, the church began to conclude that there existed a hierarchy amongst bishops.

Bishops of important cities (important either because of their spiritual importance or size) were viewed as more important than bishops of smaller cities.

Five cities emerged as the most influential cities in Christendom: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome.

Since hierarchical thinking continued to progress, it made sense to assign power from the top, which then trickled down to the bottom of the pyramid.

Since Christians presupposed this model in heaven, with God possessing the position at the top of the pyramid, they applied it to the church on earth, with the bishop holding the position of preeminence and power.

This thinking did not always dominate the church.

The ancient church viewed bishops as a kind of appellate court, primarily because the bishop was old and wise.

Over time, certain bishops went as far as to say that the life of the church proceeded from them, and they began to accumulate power.

As the bishop of the most important city in the empire, the bishop of Rome was always seen as important. Yet, this feeling of importance gave way to a hierarchical feeling of superiority, with Stephen, the bishop of Rome, quoting Jesus’ assertion to Peter as recorded in Matthew 16 for proof of the preeminence of his position.

The rest of the church, particularly the eastern bishoprics, did not grant this same authority to the bishop of Rome.

Although the bishop of Rome had much less competition in the Western part of the Roman Empire, the ancient Eastern bishops did not grant him preeminence.

The first ecumenical council, the Council of Nicea (325 AD), demonstrates that Rome did not hold the place of preeminence amongst the bishops.

Pope Leo I (440–461), also known as Pope Leo the Great, claimed all power in the church proceeded from him.

The Place of Christianity in the Roman Empire

Prior to the conversion of Emperor Constantine and his Edict of Milan in 313, Christianity was an illegal religion in the Roman Empire.

The Romans did not tolerate Christianity because, unlike the Jews, Christianity was not seen as national or ethnic, and, therefore, it was not accorded special privileges.

To be an illegal religion in the Roman Empire was very dangerous.

The Romans found Christians guilty of two major offenses, of which sometimes they added a third, less important offense.

Christians were atheists.

Christians were traitorous.

Christians were immoral.

In regard to this last, lesser offense, Christians kept their worship secret because of persecution, and so the Romans immediately suspected the worst.

The Romans misunderstood the Christian terminology of love feast and the Lord’s Supper, accusing Christianity of cannibalism and sexual immorality.

The two major offenses to the Roman Empire, which caused severe persecution, were atheism and national disloyalty.

The Roman Empire, similar to many ancient cultures, viewed religion as the glue that held their empire together.

Christians worshipped only one God, and they refused to worship the emperor.

This constituted an offense against the Roman Empire, for it was a form of traitorous atheism.

The Roman Empire, under emperors such as Decius and Diocletian, persecuted the church severely, instigating the church to practice great discipline in this time of suffering, for which they saw no end in sight.

This all changed when Constantine became Emperor of Rome

Various councils to give better definition to orthodoxy

Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Augustine of Hippo, perhaps more than anybody else, impacted Western theology.

Protestants and Roman Catholics alike claim Augustine as a great hero in the vein of their beliefs.

The Writings of Augustine

Augustine authored many, many works, and his writings made a profound impact upon the Western church.

In his On the Freedom of the Will, Augustine argued that humans must use their will for the glory of God, but this can only be achieved as the Holy Spirit bestows grace on the will and draws it to God.

Augustine put forth many a profound theological insight in his reflective work, Confessions.

Augustine outlines one of the great apologetic and pastoral truths of Christianity: “For You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless til they rest in You.”

Augustine wrestles with the nature of evil in man in the Confessions, evolving from a Platonist understanding of evil into a Biblical understanding of it.

The Platonists viewed evil as a failure to love properly.

As Augustine reflected on an incident in his childhood when he stole pears, he came to the conclusion that the issue was not his failure to love his neighbor but his love for wrongdoing.

As Augustine reflected on the burden of sin, the incapacity of mankind to remove this burden, and God’s plan to rescue man from this predicament from before the foundation of the world, he recaptured an important element of salvation and he brought this doctrine of salvation to the forefront of the life of the church.

These teachings spurred the question: how can we be saved? Augustine battled many different individuals and groups over this question.

Pelagius, a contemporary of Augustine, argued that God’s grace was not necessary for salvation, and people could achieve salvation in and of themselves.

Augustine decimated Pelagius’ argument, affirming the gracious activity of God in salvation.

The church immediately distanced itself from Pelagianism.

Following Pelagius, the Semi-Pelagians arose, and they argued that grace comes first in salvation, but human beings must cooperate with this grace.

Augustine again directed the movement toward the doctrine of salvation by grace alone as found in Scripture.

Despite this, the Semi-Pelagians persisted in the church, influencing the Roman Catholic Church to this very day.

The Roman Catholic Church has used Augustine inappropriately and taken his writings out of context in many ways.

Augustine once said, “I would not have believed the gospel except for the authority of the church.”

Roman Catholicism, particularly during the Middle Ages, loved to point to this as support for the formal institution of the church and its power.

Augustine, however, was referring to the preacher that spoke the Word of God, without which he would not have been converted.

Augustine also stated on an occasion, “Rome has spoken, the matter is settled.”

Rome points to this assertion as evidence of Augustine’s belief in the superiority of the bishop of Rome.

However, Augustine made this comment after the bishop agreed with him. On another issue, on which the bishop disagreed with Augustine, Augustine stated “Christ has spoken, the matter is settled.” Clearly, Augustine felt bound by Scripture and not Rome.

Augustine’s view of the Sacraments, particularly the Lord’s Supper, diverged from later Roman Catholic doctrine significantly.

Augustine did not provide much clarity on his understanding of the Lord’s Supper, but he clearly saw it as a spiritual feast.

Furthermore, Augustine alluded to the necessity of faith in partaking of the Lord’s Supper in his statement, “Believe and you have eaten already.”

Augustine authored a theology of history in his work, The City of God.

Augustine looked at the whole of history and tried to see how God works in history.

Ultimately, Augustine argued that history is all about the building of two cities: the city of God and the city of man.

The city of God seeks to honor God.

The city of man seeks to honor man.

These two cities represent totally different understandings to the meaning of life and how to serve God.

Augustine argued that these two cities would eventually be separated in a final judgment. In the meantime, the two cities are mixed.

Augustine believed that Christians should not stand idly by during this phase of mixing, but they should restrain the building of the human city and advance the building of the city of God.

With this statement, Augustine clearly advanced the notion that Christians should dominate society, and this view influenced the church over the next millennium as it frequently sought to take control of the state and to persecute unbelievers.