Church, Book, And Bishop

Conflict And Authority In Early Latin Christianity

Peter Iver Kaufman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780813318172
• eBook ISBN: 9780429981289
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book narrates a number of stories from the early clerical history of the church to illustrate how authority came to be shared among the institutions of church, book, and bishop. It is intended for a wide range of readers, including scholars, students.

1
Order over Error

Had Jesus left explicit instructions about how to organize, or even what to organize, the lives of many of his early admirers probably would have been much simpler than they were. Their conflicts over authority—over who had it and over how far it extended—could then have been avoided altogether or at least easily resolved, and this short study of conflict management would be much shorter. But conflicts there were, often spirited ones.

These controversies were decades and more ahead when Jesus first started talking about God’s will and human well-being. He appears to have concentrated principally on emancipation rather than organization. Perhaps he and his disciples thought that there was neither need nor time to organize. There was no need because everyone, on hearing of freedom from sin and from Gods vengeance, would behave benevolently and resolve disputes with their neighbors before crises compelled authorities to intervene. It was senseless to covet and grasp and hoard on earth when treasures beyond measure were elsewhere: “Fear not, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”¹ There was no time because the end and the “elsewhere” were at hand; those devotees whose faith in Jesus’ message survived the shock of his “trial” and death would soon be snatched up, provided for, and given that promised kingdom, a wholly new and holy new order, when their savior returned.

To report that good news, that “fear not,” devotees composed gospels. The first of the four that were later included in the New Testament was written more than thirty years after Jesus’ death. It and the others were biographies: Their authors, the evangelists, patched together reminiscences to tell the story of Jesus’ life, ministry, execution, and resurrection and to retell the stories Jesus had told. The evangelists sifted, selected, added, omitted—all to pass along the word effectively. Their gospels were seasoned with appeals and promises: “Seek first [God’s] kingdom and righteousness,” for thereupon “all these things”—the staples for life in this world, such as nutrition, clothing, shelter—“shall be yours.”²

Also among “all these things” were good company, gratifying fellowship, and collegial worship. Or so it would seem from a reading of the gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, which rehearses the experiences of the first Christian missionaries, and the letters written by the apostle Paul before the composition of the gospels and Acts. But the very same texts also suggest how difficult it was to achieve col- legiality and consensus. In fact, the postresurrection communities of Jesus’ followers and admirers seem to have constantly courted crisis.³

“Not a God of Confusion ’

Fairly late in the first century, the evangelists tried to resolve something of an identity crisis by articulating exactly what distinguished Jesus from the Pharisees who preached, as Jesus did, the resurrection of the dead. Some of the Pharisees were known to have protested strenuously when Jesus’ brother James was stoned, so those wishing to minimize the differences and to identify or intern the early Jesus movement as a chapter in the history of Pharisaic Judaism had at least the beginnings of a case. The evangelists, however, featured objections that Jesus supposedly raised against the Pharisees’ strict observance of ancestral laws, and they dramatized the Pharisees’ refusal to acknowledge Jesus as the messiah. The author of Matthew’s gospel vividly depicted a series of confrontations during which Jesus snapped at mean-spirited Pharisaic critics: They were shamelessly eager for notoriety, he said, and they were quick to find fault with all but themselves. Perhaps they were knowledgeable about custom and ceremony, Jesus conceded, but they did not comprehend justice, mercy, and faith.⁴

Some years before Matthew composed his characterization, Judaism had fallen on hard times. Its revolt against Rome had failed, and its fine temple at Jerusalem had been destroyed. Matthew and the other evangelists apparently thought it important, therefore, to emphasize, maybe even to exaggerate, Jesus’ declaration of independence from his Pharisaic contemporaries, “blind guides” and “brood of vipers.”⁵

Christians learned from their evangelists not only that the Pharisees were “blind guides” but also that the aristocratic Sadducees, who had supervised temple affairs, were shortsighted and skeptical about the resurrection of the dead. So it seemed to the early generations and communities of Jesus’ followers that none of his Jewish critics saw things all that clearly. Late-first-century Christians harbored the hope that Jesus, perceiving this myopia as well, had offered an alternative plan for leadership. Certainly, they realized that there had been both time and need for organization; they were already squabbling among themselves. But evangelists, for their part, recorded no plan. They neither encouraged nor obliged the hope that there had been one. The closest that the author of Matthew’s gospel came was to recall a few remarks that inclined toward some power-sharing arrangement: “You are not to be called Rabbi,” Jesus was reported to have said; “neither be called masters.” Indeed, “whoever exalts himself will be humbled.” And nothing at all was mentioned in the gospels about the apostle Paul, who had tried for some time to reconcile such sentiments with the need to maintain order, manage conflict, and avoid error in the postresurrection communities.⁶

Paul had been a Pharisee, defending the ancestral Jewish traditions and raging against Jesus’ disciples until his heart and mind were changed on the road to Damascus. He said that his conversion from Pharisee to friend of the friends of Jesus left him with a more generous will and a profound appreciation for the deference, patience, and mutual affection required of the faithful. Intent on conveying the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection to new recruits, he allowed that power-sharing might work, but only if each Christian’s conversion transformed his or her character. So Paul drafted instructions to perfect the conversions of his correspondents, structure and discipline their desires, and assure the solidarity of their communities. Yet as he did so, he inevitably called attention to his own authority. He fired off warnings, framed counsels, and issued commands. He professed humility but also, arguably, edged toward arrogance: “I became your father in Christ Jesus,” he told the fractious Corinthians. “Be imitators of me.”⁷

One of the several problems in Corinth was that too many Christians were imitating the apostle, counseling and commanding, presuming to set standards and to interpret Jesus’ significance for their community. They spoke “in tongues,” apparently in ecstasies as well as with unfamiliar languages, and they claimed considerable authority on the strength of that gift. Paul wanted to suppress a claim that had proven so divisive. “I speak in tongues more than you all,” he wrote, declaring nonetheless that his contributions to the maintenance of peace were far more valuable than his ecstatic utterances. He praised all who worked for peace, “laborers” who knew the importance of ecstasies and prophecies but still agreed with him that “all things should be done decently and in order.” These laborers, he said, were his genuine imitators, and their authority derived from their reconciling work. Yet inasmuch as that letter to Corinth concluded by naming laborers whom Paul had converted and with whom he continued to converse, we cannot shake the impression that their advantage and authority (“give recognition to such men”) were also due to their acquaintance with the apostle.⁸

Paul recommended “recognition,” but he did not elaborate. Earlier in his letter, he listed functions that could conceivably be taken as official positions: apostles, prophets, and teachers as well as “healers, helpers, and administrators” (at the bottom of his list he deposited those “speakers in various kinds of tongues”). “God has appointed” officials, Paul specified, but he did not imply that divine appointment was intended to give birth to bureaucracy. This inventory of responsibilities corresponded to personal powers. It was offered not as a blueprint for community rule, a layering of one set of responsibilities on another, but as a set of special God-given aptitudes and talents. In fact, another of Paul’s letters explicitly made that point about service in the church and the “gifts which differ according to the grace given to us.”⁹

Authority or recognition, therefore, appears to have been awarded those with notable personal powers—and was what some call “charismatic authority.” If Paul had had his way, authority to refine doctrine, oversee worship, and arbitrate disputes would probably have been given to irenic managers and consensus-builders with personal connections to the apostles. Only once in those letters we know were his did Paul use titles later attached to church executives, only, that is, when he addressed “all the saints … at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons.” That second plural, “bishops” (episcopoi), suggests that he did not anticipate monoepiscopacy, a subsequent arrangement providing one bishop in each church and, later still, one bishop for each regional cluster of churches. Possibly he had in mind a congress or team of superintendents, yet his correspondence never mentioned presbuteroiyelders of the church known through the next century to have met in council to deliberate and make decisions affecting their communities.¹⁰

The author of the Acts of the Apostles recalled that Paul and his companion Barnabas, traveling from town to town in the first century, “appointed elders … in every church.” Such a recollection would carry greater weight, of course, if Paul had named those elders and called them presbuteroi in his authentic letters, for the silence (or omission) awakens a suspicion that Acts remembered incorrectly. Perhaps the author wanted to credit Paul and Barnabas with having made those arrangements that prevailed somewhat after their missions. There was indeed a need to arrange and organize, but an organization based predominantly on need was less likely to compel conformity than an organization prescribed or endorsed and thus dignified by the heroes of the faith.¹¹

The author of Acts had Paul himself predict the problem that led to organization and the further definition of leadership: “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples.” Who were these wolves prowling for members? Were they ancestors of the Gnostic Christians who put a mystical spin on the apostle Paul’s teaching, drew disciples into elite regiments of savants, and upset second-century bishops with their wolfish appetities for innovation and speculation?¹² Or were they Judaizers, new converts to Christianity who wished to drift back a bit toward Judaism and “draw away” members of the new Christian communities with them and who objected to the mixed Jewish-Gentile fellowship that resulted from the expanded Christian mission? The Judaizers lionized the apostle Peter, who reputedly voiced their objections and was consequently scolded by Paul. But the scolding did not end the apostolic disagreement; the issue of mixed fellowship divided Christian communities late in the first century and into the next.¹³

The author of Acts plainly favored mixed fellowship and redrafted the history of missionary initiatives, strategically drawing Peter to his and to Paul’s side of that controversy with the Judaizers. Stories of mission and ministry, however, were no substitutes for scrupulous shepherds-in-residence, apostolically appointed elders stationed “in every church” and deputized to keep those “wolves” at bay. Acts did not press that point and trumpet Paul’s alleged appointments more loudly, probably because its author knew that elders participated in the government of the Jerusalem church, which disapproved of mixed fellowship. Rather than risk associating shepherds on site with the opposition to mixed fellowship, Acts entered only a muted plea for government by elders. The upshot is that the text moved only a little closer than the apostle Paul’s authentic letters to a settled, explicitly defined church administration.¹⁴

The pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus, written in Paul’s name early in the second century, suggested a somewhat more structured church government. Evidence for organization was certainly not overwhelming, but elders were doubly honored, once for teaching and preaching and once for “rul[ing] well.” Perhaps their positions evolved from arrangements to which the apostle’s authentic correspondence alluded. Some laborers distinguished themselves by taking greatest advantage of their gifts and were tremendously admired. With reputation came authority. They ruled well, and, as the first letter to Timothy reported, they were not easily impeached.¹⁵

The author of the pastoral letter to Titus seems to have used “bishop” and “elder” interchangeably, indicating that communities had not yet experimented with monoepiscopacy. Yet nothing about administration is nailed down with lawyerlike precision. Enough is said in the first letter to Timothy, however, to confirm, if not the elevation of a single bishop in each local church, at least the suspicion that bishops possessed more prestige and responsibility than elders.¹⁶

All the pieces of our puzzle are not in place. Itinerant prophets and apostles continued to wander throughout the territories from Athens to Antioch and around to Alexandria. But the deutero-Pauline pastoral letters show that execu- tives-in-residence were critical parts of the new religion’s local apparatus. There had been time to organize; the second coming of Jesus had not come as swiftly as some had expected. And there definitely had been a need or cause to organize, for many Christians passed that time in conflict with one another. In the early second century, there were still wolves among the sheep.

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive … treacherous, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. … Among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses. … As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith.¹⁷

Charges of this character were not uncommon in religious controversies, which is not to say, however, that they did not stir up anxiety and insecurity. We can imagine that such accusations were also composed to expose beguiling charlatans who threatened any emerging consensus and to generate eagerness and initiatives to protect truth from “men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith.” The apostle Paul generally relied for protection on the power of the truth experienced in personal conversions. Those to whom he wrote had been profoundly touched or moved by Jesus’ ministry and passion or by the good news of both. But the letters to Timothy and Titus were composed later; they were addressed to Christians who were decades, probably generations, removed from the most recent conversions in their friendship circles or families. Experiences familiar to persons of Paul’s time must by then have seemed rare, if not unrepeatable. There was still a need to protect the truth from wolves, to alert the faithful to those who tried to mislead them. It therefore appears that the postresurrection communities, having already started down the road from ideology to institution, continued to develop from simple, separatist assemblies or sects with no fixed form of government into churches with resident executives and uniform organizations.¹⁸

Greetings in some early Christian correspondence suggest the existence of small conventicles, cozy cells and extended families gathered in “household churches.” Were that the case, protection, as I have sketched it, would have required minimal precautions. But the presumed intimacy and informality are hard to document. Scholars now say that the greetings signal only that Christians sometimes congregated in the homes of more affluent members, that most left their homes and made their ways to worship with persons from different parts of their villages, from different villages, from different classes, and with different ideas.¹⁹

With differences came disagreements and with disagreements, charges like those we have just encountered. Church leaders could find no crawl space beneath controversy to hide. The cultic meals should have effaced differences and promoted sociability as well as solidarity, melding all participants into a single company or “body,” but even those exercises turned out to be controversial.

The cultic meal was an occasion to offer thanks to God, hence the name “eucharist,” thanksgiving. The apostle Paul provide...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Order over Error
• 2 Tertullian
• 3 Leadership: Bishops, Councils, and Emperors
• 4 Augustine
• 5 Authority and Humility
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• About the Book and Author
• Index