We have learned that the Roman Empire persecuted Christians during the second century. The Romans held odd notions of what it meant to be Christian. It was during this time that Christian thinkers began to develop arguments to dispel false notions of the faith. These defenders were known as apologists.
Gonzalez: ‘Many of the rumors that the apologists sought to dispel were based on a misunderstanding of Christian practices or teaching. Thus, for instance, Christians gathered every week to celebrate what they called a ‘love feast.’ This was done in private, and only initiates (those who had been baptized) were admitted.’
Christians also called each other brother and sister. These practices led unadvised Romans to make all kinds of wild assumptions about what Christians were doing behind closed doors. Christians were accused of having wild sex crazed parties, eating flesh of newborn children and all kinds of nonsense.
The smart Romans could not get their arms around Christian beliefs.
Gonzalez: ‘Although it attacked Christianity on numerous accounts, this criticism boiled down to a main point: Christians were an ignorant lot whose doctrines, although preached under a cloak of wisdom, were foolish and even self-contradictory. This seems to have been a common attitude among the cultured aristocracy, for whom Christians were a despicable rabble.’
A Roman guy named Celsus provided a glimpse of Roman elite thought process towards Christians:
‘In some private homes we find people who work with wood and rags, and cobblers, that is, the least cultured and most ignorant kind. Before the head of the household, they dare not utter a word. But as soon as they can take the children aside or some women who are as ignorant as they are, they speak wonders.’
Gonzalez notes that this sounds an awful lot like class warfare. “Their main objection was that Christianity was a religion of barbarians who derived their teaching, not from the Greeks or Romans, but from Jews, a primitive people who best teachers never rose to the level of Greek philosophers. If anything good is to be found in Jewish Scripture-they said-that is because the Jews copied it from the Greeks.’
These antagonistic Roman views ridiculed what Christians believed. They mused, how can one worship an all powerful God who worries about each person and who came down to earth in person only to suffer death on the cross, only then to be resurrected? The Romans did not think this made any sense at all.
Celsus: ‘What could be the purpose of such a visit to earth by God? To find out what is taking place among humans? Does He not know everything? Or is it perhaps that He knows but is incapable of doing anything about evil unless He does it in person?
That Christians will be resurrected after death and that Christ will come again to judge every person were just plain nonsense to the Romans.
Well fortunately Christians were not all cobblers. We had a few thinkers too.
Aristides, Justin the martyr, Titian, and Theophilus were some of the early Christian writers who came to the defense of Christian faith during the second century. These guys began the process of developing the theology of the church.
Gonzalez: ‘By reading all these apologies, historians can see what were the main objections that pagans raised against Christianity, as well as the manner in which the most cultured members of the church responded to them, and how Christian theology developed in the very act of responding to pagan objections.’
Our main boys back then had to stand firm against worshipping other gods. This would not do. They also thought that serving in the Roman military and worshiping the emperor were equally bad ideas.
Gonzalez: ‘To be a Christian required a commitment to the sole worship of God, and any deviation from that commitment was a denial of Jesus Christ, who in final judgment would in turn deny the apostate.’
One apologist named Tatian main some pretty strong arguments against those who said that the Greeks created everything that was worth knowing and that all Christians were barbarians.
Gonzalez: ‘All that the Greeks have that is of any value-so said Tatian-they have taken from the barbarians: they learned astronomy from the Babylonians, geometry from the Egyptians, and writing from the Phoenicians. And the same is true of philosophy and religion, since the writings of Moses are much older than those of Plato, and even than those of Homer. Therefore, any agreement between that culture which is supposedly Greek and the religion of the Hebrew and Christian ‘barbarians’ is the result of the Greeks having learned their wisdom from the barbarians. And what makes matters worse is that the Greeks, in reading the wisdom of the ‘barbarians,’ misunderstood it, and thus twisted the truth that the Hebrews knew. In consequence, the supposed wisdom of the Greeks is but a pale reflection and caricature of the truth that Moses knew and Christians preach.’
If it were not bad enough that the Romans dissed Christians during the second century, there were people inside the church that got the Christian message all mixed up as well.
The first groups of these were known as Gnostics. These guys put forth the notion that they had the inside scoop on what Christianity really meant.
Gonzalez: ‘According to the Gnostics, they possessed special, mystical knowledge, reserved for those with true understanding. That knowledge was the secret key to salvation…Gnostics rejected the notion that Christ had a body like ours.’
‘Gnosticism was a serious threat to Christianity throughout the second century. The main leaders of the church tenaciously opposed it, for they saw in it a denial of several crucial Christian doctrines, such as creation, incarnation, and resurrection.’
There was also a guy named Marcion who distorted the Christian message. Marcion did what Thomas Jefferson would do centuries later; he left out parts of the bible he did not like.
Marcion did not use Hebrew Scriptures. At the time, there was no New Testament. But there were all four gospels in circulation as well as Acts and the Pauline Epistles. Maricon used only the texts that suited his beliefs.
Marcion ideology then:
Gonzalez: ‘This God requires nothing of us, but rather gives everything freely, including salvation. This God does not seek to be obeyed, but to be loved….Jesus was not really born of Mary…at the end there will be no judgment, since the Supreme God is absolutely loving, and will simply forgive us.’
Marcion attracted a following and established his own version of the bible and church that rivaled the Orthodox Church for several centuries.
The ideas put forth by Gnostics and Marcion can be seen in hindsight as being off the mark by modern Christians. But I wonder if this is really the case. It seems to me that for all of history people have been trying to make ‘God’ in the image that suits them. Today, we have plenty of people who think they have secret insight to the truth. Others celebrate the Prosperity Gospel which is so popular because it is so undemanding and wants everybody to ‘be happy.’
For all its failings, which will be many in the years to come, it is really the second century leaders of the church that kept the Christian faith from falling into the abyss and being swallowed up by any old idea that came along. This is pivotal in mind in showing the work of the Holy Spirit in looking after her frail church.
In response to the dangers posed by the Gnostics and the Marcions, church leaders began to emerge that drafted dogma that would guide the church through these turbulent times. Many often think the bible and the church were conspiracies that were crafted by those trying to protect their power positions. But in truth the church was born in weakness and persecution and false ideas all around. It was a few dedicated and faithful followers that prevailed in the arena of Christian ideas.
These early leaders crafted the New Testament canon. They included four gospels where Marcion only liked Luke. In later centuries, people pointed out inconsistencies between gospel texts. But the early Christians already knew this.
Gonzalez: ‘They did this as a direct response to the challenge of Maricon and Gnosticism. Many Gnostic teachers claimed that the heavenly messenger had trusted his secret knowledge to a particular disciple, who alone was the true interpreter of the message….Against the secret traditions and private interpretations of the Gnostics, the church had recourse to an open tradition, known to all, and to the multiplicity of witness of the Gospels….Next to the Gospels, the book of Acts and the Pauline epistles enjoyed early recognition. Thus, by the end of the second century, the core of the canon was established: the four Gospels, Acts and the Pauline epistles.’
We also learn that our second century church fathers established belief statements to combat the heretical teachings of the Gnostics and the Marcions. Gonzalez says the basic outline of the Apostles Creed was in place by about 150 A.D.
Gonzalez: ‘It was then called a ‘symbol of faith’…one of the main uses of this ‘symbol’ was in baptism, where it was presented to the candidate in the form of a series of questions:
Do you believe in God the Father almighty?
Do you believe in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was born of the Holy Ghost, and of Mary the virgin, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose against at the third day, living from among the dead, and ascended unto heaven and sat at the right of the Father, and will come to judge the quick and the dead?
Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy church, and the resurrection of the flesh?’
These questions later became the Apostles Creed and they were written in direct response to groups that tried to morph the Christian faith into something that it was not.
It is also interesting that the term holy church was listed as something to be believed in. It is at this point in history that the church begins to establish herself as an entity of authority. The term catholic church originally meant the ‘universal church.’ It is only later that it will come to mean anything to do with Apostle Peter.
Gonzalez: ‘Over against Marcion and Gnostics, the church at large claimed to be in possession of the original gospel and the true teachings of Jesus. Thus, what was debated was in a way the authority of the church against the claims of the heretics….at this point; the notion of apostolic succession became very important.’
The early church fathers were in fact taught the gospel by the disciples. When they heard false teachings they knew it and put forth arguments that saved the church.
