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• Continuity with the Old Testament. Election, unmerited grace, a priestly society to the nations, exclusivity, the OT canon, and negative attitude to pagan religions as cults of evil spirits
• Foreign domination and a poor Palestinian economy facilitated the Jewish diaspora from Cadiz to Crimea. There were 11-12 synagogues in Rome in the 1st century and 1 million Jews in Alexandria and Egypt. Jews sent annual donations to the Temple in Jerusalem.
• Israel was a “religion of the book.” An “exegetical tradition” developed with the scribal class.
• The earliest church. Mr. Chadwick offers the obligatory summary of Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, the Jewish War, and Rabbi Paul. Most of the apostles “disappeared” from history, although Peter, John and James get press. There were stories of Thomas in Persia and India, Andrew in Scythia of southern Russia and various other medieval legends. See Eusebius as well.
• John lived and died in Ephesus. By 200, the Ephesians would point to his tomb. Philip the Evangelist died in Phrygia. James the Just was martyred in Jerusalem in 62 A.D.
• Paul was a man who could “translate the Palestinian Gospel” into something “intelligible in the Greek world.” We think this a gratuitous overstatement by Mr. Chadwick.
• Some Jewish Christians continued their Sabbaths, circumcision, and annual feasts. Jerome translated into Latin a Jewish “Gospel According to the Hebrews,” a document that differed very little from the canonical Gospels. Eventually, these Christians sank into oblivion. Yet, Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho sees the Jewish Christians as a continuing force. They kept their Jewish distinctives while noting their differences with Gentile Christians. From Irenaeus’ onwards, they were viewed as a Christian sect.
• Mr. Chadwick does an obligatory review of Emperor worship, the cult of Isis (Egypt), Mithras (Persian deity of light), and the Anatolian cult of Attis and Cybelle. The Romans were tolerant towards Christians—initially.
• Emperor Domitian (81-96). He claimed to be the “Master and God.” A customary oath was “by the genius of the emperor.” Sounds like Tudor and Stuart kings. Sounds like Obama and other state-worshippers. But the 3rd century, Christians were viewed as atheists.
• Emperor Trajan (98-117). We read of the concern of the Governor of Bithynia, Pliny. The economy was adversely affected by the abandonment of pagan temples, e.g. sales for sacrificial animals was down. Complaints were registered about these Christians who met on Sundays, sang an “hymn to Christ” as to God, and took oaths to moral rectitude. A tiresome increase of complaints, including anonymous accusations, came to Pliny. Pliny had put some Christians to death. He wrote the Emperor for legal guidance. Trajan directed Pliny not to search for Christians, but if accused and they confessed, then death was allowable. By the 2nd century, being a Christian became a “capital offense.”
• Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, martyred in 117. Telesphorus, bp. in Rome, martyred. Polycarp of Smyrna, a Christian for 86 years, was martyred in 155. Justin Martyr of Rome was martyred between 162 and 168. By 177, there was savage violence in Lyons and Vienne of the Rhone Valley.
• Tertullian would quip, “If the Tiber rises too much or the Nile too low, the cry is, `The Christians to the lion.’”
2. Faith and Order—Bonds of unity, Gnosticism, Ministry and the Bible, Forms of Ministry, to pages 55
• Corinth. Mr. Chadwick suggests that incipient Gnosticism lay behind the Corinthian chaos and hubris. The super-apostles deemed themselves the “spiritual aristocrats” with a “more profound wisdom” and “deeper mystical experiences.” The Spirit was everything and good while the body was nothing, if not evil. We are more of the view that it was Jewish-forces, perhaps Gnosticized, but Jewish, e.g. 2 Cor. 11. But, precisely what or whatever the super-apostles were, they opposed apostolic authority as supremacists and contrarians.
• Colosse. Again, a syncretistic and theosophic movement consisted of elements from the mystery cults and heterodox Judaism. We wish Mr. Chadwick offered a fuller analysis. There were intermediate angels or heavenly/astral bodies coupled with strict ascetic practices.
• Rival sects emerged in 80-150
• The questions are: (1) Did Greek philosophy get grafted onto the Christian message? Or, (2), were these Christians who adjusted their message to accommodate Greek elements and philosophy?
• The Gnostics were a varied, imprecise and syncretistic lot. In the elect, there was a “divine spark” imprisoned in “matter.” Salvation was the attempt to rouse people from “sleep walking.” The present world was “utterly alien to the supreme God” of the OT (35). A perilous journey through the several astral spheres would lead to the heavenly home by the use of secret passwords and amulets. The rival Gnostic sects hated each other and vied with one another by a better set of code words.
• The Gnostics depreciated the OT, especially the God of the OT. Marcion especially fit this mold although he didn’t develop Gnostic cosmogonies or angel-obsessions. He was excommunicated at Rome in 144. He wrote the Antitheses; he accused God of vacillating, needing to interrogate Adam as to his whereabouts in the Garden, and had to descend to Sodom and Gomorrah for investigative purposes. The God of the Jews was the creator of a miserable world. It was inconceivable to Marcion that Jesus was born of a woman. He denied OT prophecy. In Marcion’s “evaluation of the Old Testament there lurks a constant overtone of anti-Semitism” (40). Marcion became a proto-NT textual critic—like Bart Ehrman we would add. Marcion dismissed the OT. Marcion dismissed Mt, Mk, and Jn. He felt that Judaizers corrupted Luke’s Gospel so he pruned anything savoring of the OT. He threw out other books. He produced his own NT canon—like the 19th-20th century liberals.
• The Valentinians accepted the four canonical gospels but added another Gospel. They viewed portions of the OT as inspired while others were not. They had their own esoteric oral tradition.
• The Ministry of the Word and Bible, pages 41-45. “Authority was the central issue.” Who sat in the apostolic chair? Who were the governors of the church?
• Ignatius of Antioch stressed the bishop as the “focus of unity.” The bishop was God’s man.
• Clement of Rome, the presiding presbyter or bishop of Rome, stressed the connection to the apostles as the authorized representatives of the faith. The apostles had authority. Their representatives in succession had authority. The Gnostics proliferated, but were mutable and changing. The Apostolic word was the unbroken tradition. We would add the canonical Gospels, Acts and the Epistles as well.
• The formation of the canon. The authority of the OT and the Words of the Lord were the impulses to governance and adjudication. There were four canonical Gospels. Justin Martyr uses Mt-Luke, but his disciple, Tatian, coordinates John in the 4-fold stream of authority. The 4 Gospels had “achieved” a wide and general acceptance.
• “Apostolicity” was the strict canon. This strict canon would also lead to the exclusion of 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas—these were profitable for private reading, but were not canonical like the Apostles. Hence, “apostolicity” of authorship was the “canon of orthodoxy.” Sorry, Mr. Ehrman, throw your hat into Marcion and the Gnostics’ ring.
• The “Rule of Faith” was created, a short summary of revelatory events in redemptive history, for use with catechumens.
• A transition is operational also. Ignatius refers to a “monarchial bishop” (Mr. Chadwick’s terms) in Antioch and Asian churches. The transition from apostles, prophets, and teachers to bishops, presbyters, and deacons is “obscured” (46). Clement of Rome was a bishop-presbyter, perhaps a presiding presbyter. Philippians speaks of bishops and deacons. The Didache, 70-110, advises congregational appointment of bishops and deacons to perform the ministry of the apostles, prophets and teachers. The deacons in Justin Martyr’s time took the elements of Holy Communion to the sick. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, deacons presided at the Eucharist; however, by the Council of Arles (314) and the Council of Nicaea (6th canon, 325), this was frowned upon; the Holy Communion was to be served and led by the local presbyter. According to the Apostolic Tradition in Hippolytus’ time in Rome (200-220), the bishop and presbyter would lay hands on a presbyter at ordination; however, only the bishop would lay hands on a deacon at ordination; it would appear that these were decisions not of necessary canonical authority other than for “good order, appropriate governance, and control” (our quotes). Somewhere, the bishop acquired a superiority He may have been a “senior member of the presbyterial college,” a “first among equals.” In Jerusalem, there was a “president” above but equal to the presbyters. The variety of church order and liturgy was the legacy of the missionary and developing church.
• A 3-tiered ministry emerges in the 2nd century without controversy. 1 bishop in a city with presbyters and deacons. By the 3rd century, dignity attached to apostolic centers: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome. According to the 6th canon of the Nicene Council, these patriarchies or metropolitan jurisdictions were larger than provincial ones. These developments occur while Montanism was emerging—irrational ecstatics who viewed themselves as mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit with high expectations to be received as those mouthpieces.
• Hippolytus of Rome addressed the divisiveness of the Montanists against the holy, universal, and apostolic churches. He stated that conversion was the supernatural miracle and believers had the Holy Spirit. He underscored the ministry of the Word and sacrament. These “irrational ecstatics” led to “pride and censoriousness” like our modern charismoes and Penties. Somethings just don't change.
• The apostolicity of the canonical writings, dependence on those writings, the closing of the NT canon, the dominance and readings of the OT and the Apostolic records, the Rule of Faith, and church structures are evident...in the holy, catholic and apostolic church...during the deviant and antagonistic heyday of Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism.
