Church History: Pentecost - 500 AD

Introduction

We’re going to start a short series that does an overview of Church History. The Church has existed for about 2,000 years, and a lot has happened. We won’t cover every single detail, but the goal will be give a general overview of key events, key people, and key discussions that happened. I’ll break it up into 500 year blocks.

If at any time there is an event, or person, that I don’t mention that you’d like to learn more about, just let me know and I’ll get info on them!

Key Events

The Church was officially born on Pentecost, after the ascension of the Lord, sometime around 30 AD. The book of Acts tells us about the early days of the Church and how Christianity began to spread throughout the Roman Empire. Acts ends sometime in the mid-late first century.

70 AD: The Jewish rebellion is put down by Rome, Jerusalem is destroyed, Jews (and Jewish Christians) banned from the city. Gentile Christians still maintained a presence in the city.

100 AD - By the end of the first century, all of the apostles are martyred, except for John, who likely died in Ephesus (after being exiled on Patmos).

Christianity continues to spread in all directions (...to the ends of the earth). Within the Roman Empire it spreads west to Rome, south to Alexandria, Egypt. It also spread north and east, outside the bounds of the Empire.

The eastern push was met with intense persecution by non-Roman civilizations. Tradition says that some of the apostles managed to travel as far as India, and within a few hundred years there is some evidence that Christianity spread even further, although it was never as strong as it was in the Roman Empire.

The Church also filtered south into Africa (even more south than Alexandria), reaching as far as Ethiopia.

Within the Roman Empire, Christianity was viewed as a Jewish sect for the first couple of hundred years.

This was good and bad. It was good, because Jews had a few special privileges including a legal religion. The bad was when Jews were persecuted, Christians often got wrapped up with it.

However, once it became clear that Christianity was its own religion, it became outright illegal.

The Romans viewed Christians as “atheists” because they did not worship the Roman gods, and therefore were “disruptive” to society.

Very early on there was also a lot of confusion over Christians because they were fairly secretive about their beliefs.

Accusations of cannibalism & incest were levied against them - because they heard that Christians “ate the body & blood”, and they called each other, including their spouses, “brothers and sisters”.

Up until about 300 AD, persecution was more localized. The Romans didn’t always know what to do with the Christians, but there was no officially sanctioned persecution at a national level until 303-304.

The Great Persecution breaks out in 303-304 when two Roman Emperors, Diocletian and Galerius decree that all Christians must recant of their faith, make a sacrifice to the gods or Emperor (even something as simple as pouring out glass of water a drink offering would have sufficed), or be killed.

This intense period of persecution pushed the Church to its breaking point. It lasted 10 years, thousands upon thousands of Christians were tortured and/or killed, and their documents burned. It is difficult to find Biblical manuscripts from before this time period.

312 - Constantine the Great becomes first Christian Emperor.

In the midst of the Great Persecution, a civil war breaks out between the four Emperors of Rome (Tetrarch). The night before the dicisive battle, Constantine has a vision of a cross in the sky, which he interprets to be a good omen from the Christian God. This is considered his “conversion”.

Constantine wins the battle, and in 313, him and his co-emperor announce the Edict of Milan, which ended the Great Persecution and gave official state recognition to Christianity.

This is a major turning point for the Church. From this point on, Christianity is no longer another small religion in the Empire, it will quickly become the religion of the Empire.

Constantine demanded that churches and Christians receive their property back, and he also started funding them. The days of house churches had come to an end - new, official, and beautiful churches like basilicas began cropping up (or taking over old pagan temples).

The fact that Christianity went from a small movement worshipping a Jewish rabbi in the backwoods of the Roman Empire to the official state religion in less than 300 years, despite the persecution, is just amazing. Many at the time viewed it as nothing less than divine providence (and they were probably right).

While this change was seen as good, it didn’t come without its problems. For the foreseeable future, the Church would not be able to escape the constant intermingling (and interference) of the government, for better or worse.

325 - The First Council of Nicea

The first major involvement occurred when Constantine noticed a doctrinal dispute within the church and decided to call a Council over it.

This caused an interesting question: who gets the make decisions about the church - its clergy, or the government (even if the governor happens to be Christian?)

The council had 300 bishops present, and the emperor. His only “involvement”: telling them to figure it out. “Division in the church is worse than war,” he said.

What was the division over? The nature of Christ. A man named Arius and his followers had denied the full divinity of Christ (the heresy known as Arianism).

In the end, Arius was condemned, and the first copy of the Nicene Creed was written. This creed was simple, and laid out the fundamental faith tenets of Christianity - including that Christ was “begotten not made” and “of the same substance as the Father”.

The Creed was later expanded (to talk about the Holy Spirit) and clarified in 381. But the fight between orthodoxy and Arianism lasted well into the 400s.

451 - The Council of Chalcedon

The second council to deal with the nature of Christ, this time, his humanity.

On the opposite end of Arianism was Apollinarianism (Apollinarius), Nestorianism (Nestorius), and Eutyches.

Apollinarius taught that Christ wasn’t fully human.

Nestorius taught that Jesus was two persons (or a human body, but his mind was God).

Eutyches blurred the deity and humanity (two natures) of Christ together.

Chalcedon clarified that Christ is fully human, he is one person, and yet his two natures are distinct.

There were several smaller Christian branches that did not fully agree with Chalcedon and continue to exist in the East to this day.

330 - Constantine moves Roman capital to Constantinople (in the East), marking the steady decline of the Empire in Rome and the West. Eventually the “Western Roman Empire” will fall in 476.

For the Church, the main “hub” shifted to Constantinople, where the Eastern part of the Empire spoke Greek, and let by the Bishop of Constantinople.

In the West, the collapsing government left a power vacuum, causing the Church, and the Bishop of Rome (which we call the Pope), to take an outsized role by necessity. In the West, the main language was Latin.

The difference in language has already played a role in the Church during the first 300-400 years, but it will become more pronounced going forward. Many issues and disputes between the East and West often came down to literally not being able to understand each other.

Key People

St. Ignatius - lived in the early 100s, was Bishop of Caesarea, taken to Rome to be martyred. On his way he wrote 7 letters to different churches and Polycarp, which we still have. They are among the earliest documents we have outside the New Testament.

St. Polycarp - Bishop of Smyrna. Also lived in the early 100s and was martyred around 155 in his 80s. He was a disciple of John, and it could be the Bishop of Smyrna John was writing to in Revelation. Was friends with Ignatius. Wrote a Letter to the Philippians. The amazing story of his martyrdom is found in the early church document The Martyrdom of Polycarp.

Irenaeus of Lyons - lived mid-late 100s. Known for some early historical work and his book Against Heresies, which was the first real apologetic of Christianity.

Justin Martyr - early Christian apologist in the early to mid-100s. He was a trained philosopher before becoming a Christian (famously never stopped wearing his philosopher gown, claiming he had found the True Philosophy). Three major works - First Apology, Second Apology, Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. He was the first Christian writer to publicly describe a regular church service, which to that point had been secretive. Was eventually martyred in 165, hence his title.

Tertullian of Carthage (N. Africa) - 160-225 AD, was a lawyer who became a Christian and passionately defended the faith. Eventually joined an early Christian cult (the Montanists), but is still credited with coining the term “Trinity” to describe the Christian understanding of God. In a time when most Christian writers spoke and wrote in Greek, Tertullian used Latin.

Origen of Alexandria: 185-253 - Perhaps the greatest Christian theologian of the first 300 years of the church. He led the school in Alexandria, and brought Christianity into the “mainstream”, articulating it in a way that made it respectable among the other philosophers. Wrote the first comprehensive book on Christian theology called “On First Principles”. Known for “allegorical interpretation” of Scripture. Was not without controversy...was eventually deemed a “heretic” almost 300 years after his death.

Athanasius of Alexandria: 296-373 - Bishop of Alexandria who, at times, single-handedly fought Arianism and defended orthodoxy. He was a young man, but present, during the first council of Nicea, and spent the rest of his life defending its principles. C.S. Lewis once said, “It was Athanasius against the world.” Though he didn’t live to see it, orthodoxy eventually won out. Wrote a short, but powerful treatise called On the Incarnation. Also wrote a biography called Life of Antony, about his mentor, Antony who was considered the father of Monasticism.

Eusebius of Caesarea: 260-339 - Bishop of Caesarea. Known as the Father of Church History, he wrote Church History, where he took on the task of writing down the first 300 years of the church. Big fan of Constantine and saw great theological significance of his conversion and the ending of the Great Persecution.

Cappadocian Fathers: 300s - Three men from Cappadocia, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa (they were brothers), and Gregory “The Theologian” of Nazianzus (their friend). All three were strong theologians, defended Nicea (the Trinity, nature of Christ), and many other works.

St. Jerome: 347-420 - Very educated writer. Learned Hebrew, which was rare. Greatest achievement was translating the Bible into Latin (Vulgate, still used by Catholic Church to this day). Also very arrogant and fiery, mercilessly attacked anyone who disagreed with him and picked fights with everyone. Ended up “moving” to Bethlehem where he started a monastery.

St. Augustine of Hippo: 354-430 - Became a Christian later in life (30s), went on to become one of the most prolific theologians and writers in church history. His autobiography Confessions is a classic. His most well-known work is the massive tome The City of God. This book was written to answer two groups of people as the Roman Empire collapsed: for the pagans who argued Rome was dying because Christians had “angered” the old gods, and then for Christians who were asking, “How can a ‘Christian nation’ fall?”

Key Issues

The most dominant issue during this period was nature of Christ.

Earliest Christians had to defend Christ’s humanity, specifically that he actually had a real human body. Ignatius and Iraenus dealt with this.

Later, it was the deity of Christ, which was challenged by Arius (Nicea).

And then finally, again, the humanity of Christ, although on different grounds than the earliest Christians dealt with (Constantinople).

Clarifying other doctrinal matters, such as the Trinity.

General defenses of Christianity as 1. not a threat to Rome, 2. a reasonable and believable religion and philosophy.

Persecution

Marcionism

Montanism

Conclusion

The first 500 years of the church saw Christianity spread throughout the known world like wildfire. While the main focus is on what happened within the boundaries of the Roman Empire, it was even more widespread than that, illustrating that the Holy Spirit didn’t need long advance the Gospel and fulfil the Great Commission.